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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24024532">Daphne &amp; Dylan</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/x4ashes4ashes/pseuds/shipcestuous'>shipcestuous (x4ashes4ashes)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Animated GIFs, Brother/Sister Incest, F/M, Multimedia, Sibling Rivalry</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-03 01:02:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>144</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>28,134</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24024532</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/x4ashes4ashes/pseuds/shipcestuous</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Daphne Kane didn't expect that the biggest challenge of the FBI academy would be training alongside her younger brother. They have always had a competitive relationship, but their rivalry has never been this intense. Can she make it to graduation without killing him?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Brother/Sister</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>75</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is an original story told through a mix of gifs and text. </p>
<p>The gifs you'll see here are from the TV series <i>Quantico</i>, about a group of trainees at the FBI Academy. I was inspired to essentially re-purpose the relationship between the two (non-related) characters Caleb and Shelby for a new narrative with original dialogue in which they are brother and sister. </p>
<p>The premise for my original narrative is very similar to the series it was inspired by: Daphne and Dylan Kane are new trainees together at Quantico—but they are siblings with a very competitive relationship and a tense dynamic. (If you think that sounds stupid, you’re right, but I’ve put too much work into this to be too embarrassed to share it. And, well, inspiration strikes where it strikes. Caleb and Shelby was the ship I wanted to use and if they were at the FBI Academy than Daphne and Dylan had to be too.)</p>
<p>The idea behind this project—behind revisioning these two characters as siblings—was getting to <i>watch</i> them fall in love the way we so rarely get to see incest love stories play out onscreen. Hopefully that benefit outweighs some of the awkwardness of the format and the compromises that had to be made in order to tell the story I wanted to tell and use as much of the source material as possible. </p>
<p>A few disclaimers:</p>
<ul>
<li>I do not advise using "View Entire Work". There are far too many gifs to load all at one time.</li>
<li>A realistic depiction of the FBI and the FBI Academy was not the goal here. That will be obvious.</li>
<li>I apologize in advance for some of the weirder looking gifs. The speed ladders, the dark spots, the odd dimensions, the awkward cropping. There are a lot of reasons why some gifs might look different, but there definitely is a reason and the less you try and figure that reason out the happier you’ll be. And obviously it could never be perfect - scenes are out of order from the source material, mouth movements don't always match up well to the new dialogue, etc. So look at the gifs but don't look <i>too hard</i>. </li>
</ul>
<p>This project is also posted on <a href="http://daphnedylan.wordpress.com">Wordpress</a>. You can read/view it there if you would like and find more introductory details.</p>
<p>Thank you to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azdaema">Azdaema</a> and her amazing abilities, without which this story never would have been available on AO3.</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <h3>Premise:</h3>
  <p>Law enforcement—specifically the FBI—is the Kane family business. After failing her entrance exams to the FBI academy in a freak glitch in her otherwise perfectly-arranged life, Daphne Kane took a detour and completed law school. Her top-level FBI parents pulled strings so that she could apply once more and she was finally accepted. Now she’s back on track for her dream job, but this will mean training in the same academy class as her younger brother Dylan, with whom she has always felt competitive (…and permanently irritated). Dylan aced his exams on the first try, something he will never let her live down. He has always been more likely to slack off than work hard, but when he puts forth even a little effort he’s a force to be reckoned with. WILL THEIR RIVALRY FOR TOP RANKING BE TOO HOT TO HANDLE?</p>
  <p> </p>
  <p>    <span class="small">(Spoilers: Well, hopefully so—that’s the goal anyway.)</span><br/>  </p>
</blockquote>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A few years of law practice probably would have given her even more of a leg up over her new peers at the FBI, but Daphne didn’t even bother taking the bar exam after graduating from law school at Duke. There had been enough delay already. She felt like she had been treading water the entire time, waiting to get on with her real future, her real life.</p><p>There’s just as much nervousness as excitement in the air as she and the other trainees start their first day at the academy, but Daphne isn’t nervous or excited. This might be her second try getting into Quantico, but aside from that humiliating blip when she originally failed the entrance exams, she is a stellar student and beyond prepared. (Thanks in large part to her parents, who had implicitly made it clear her entire life that an FBI career—like <em>theirs</em>—was the only <em>worthwhile</em> career, and the only way to make them proud.) She has no reason to be nervous.</p><p>As for excitement, she’ll enjoy proving she’s one of the best here, but the academy is just a brief step on the way to what she really wants—a position at headquarters in DC (…or the New York field office, if she has to <em>settle</em>). No one could ever fault her with a lack of ambition, but looking around the room she’s not intimidated by her competition. Only a few in their class will be able to go to the office of their choice and Daphne intends to be among those few.</p><p class="gifs">
  

</p><p>But orientation hasn’t even officially started yet and her time here is already ruined: strolling in like the smug asshole he has always been is her younger brother, Dylan. So much for leaving her old life behind her, she can’t even escape her childhood pest.</p><p>Dylan isn’t exactly the last person she expects to see walking through that door—after all, both siblings had spent their entire lives anticipating the day they would become agents like their parents—but she had always wondered if he would really go through with it…and actually be able to make it in. Dylan has a certain tenacity, but it isn’t usually activated. His life has been too easy for that kind of everyday grit.</p><p>But here he is. She’s almost impressed.</p><p class="gifs">
  

</p><p>If Daphne had known she would have to train in the same class as her younger brother then she would have gone ahead with the bar, spent a year or two practicing law, and postponed Quantico. Hell, she would have gone through the entire application process again just to avoid him, including retaking those damn tests. He is nasty enough about her failure the first time around on family holidays—now she will have to see him all day every day.</p><p>She can’t help but wonder if he kept his acceptance a secret from her on purpose, just for the perverted satisfaction of this moment. He had to have already known about it the last time they saw each other. There’s no telling how his twisted little mind works. Aren’t the FBI psych screenings supposed to prevent psychos like this from getting in?</p><p class="gifs">
  
</p><p>Daphne doesn't hide her surprise very well, as much as she doesn’t want to give him the gratification. She keeps her anger inside, but he doesn’t need to see it on her face to know exactly what she’s feeling.</p><p class="gifs">
  


</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It isn’t easy to avoid Dylan—not a great omen for the rest of the term—but she doesn’t actually get a chance to <strike>confront</strike> talk to him alone until that evening. Which is probably for the best, because she needs those hours to recover from her shock and disappointment…and rage. Daphne doesn’t want to admit that she’s intimidated to be training alongside him, but Dylan has a way of bringing out the worst in her, and their lifelong rivalry is legendary. Just ask their parents, extended family, neighbors, friends, teachers, classmates, exes, roommates, barbers, dentists, and probably just about anyone who has ever exchanged a few words with them.</p><p class="gifs">
  







</p><p>And suddenly the rage is back…</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Let the good times commence…</p><p class="gifs">
  













</p><p>It was good to know that her being a “tattletale” was still a sore point with him. Apparently the passage of 12+ years made no difference. And of course he couldn’t resist the opportunity to imply that their parents had helped her get in. Did it really make a difference that she had to take the exams again, as long as she passed them?</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  

</p><p>OK, so he can do more pull-ups. That’s fine.</p><p class="gifs">
  

</p><p>Because she’s the better shot.</p><p class="gifs">
  


</p><p>And the better student, even if he liked to pretend differently sometimes.</p><p class="gifs">
  


</p><p>And just all-around better, really.</p><p>Daphne can’t help but be reminded of that year in high school when her soccer team was undefeated and his was 1 and 11.</p><p>Those are the memories you treasure.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  


</p>
<p>OK, she should have seen this coming…</p>
<p>He doesn’t like to see her excelling, and now he’s lashing out. In—typical of him—the most juvenile fashion possible.</p>
<p class="gifs">
 




</p>
<p>Of course he’s not just going to take it lying down. He was the type of brother who didn’t like to see his sister doing well. (Doing better than him, specifically.)</p>
<p>
  <em>You’re above it, Daphne. You’re above it. You’re above it. Be above it.</em>
</p>
<p class="gifs">
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  









</p>
<hr/><p>Dylan had spent a lot of time anticipating the look on Daphne’s face when she saw that they would be in the same class. Now that he’s almost a week in…he’s not so sure it was his best idea ever not to postpone until next spring. He has earned his place in the Little Brother Hall of Fame—Daphne hasn’t stopped exhaling steam like a raging bull since she first saw him—but there’s a cost: he would probably be having a good time here on his own. As it was, she was constantly taunting him with her brilliance and her ambition, and it would be nice to walk into a room and <em>not</em> see her there—but he can’t seem to turn a corner in this place without running into her.</p><p class="gifs">
  

</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  




</p><p>He should know better than to underestimate how much damage she could do with her nails. She was pretty sure he still had a scar on his stomach from a fight when they were 8 and 6.</p><p class="gifs">
  

</p><p>There are 40 other trainees in their class—why does it feel like it’s just the two of them? She knew it would be suffocating to have him there, but it is so much worse than she had feared. And it hasn’t even been a week yet.</p><p class="gifs">
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Rankings in a variety of proficiency areas are posted at the end of the first week. Daphne knows she shouldn’t care so much about the rankings—the program is only cutting a few people from the bottom, and even just the top six would probably be sufficient to get her priority selection for her field office assignment. But…That’s not how she’s wired, especially not with Dylan around.</p><p>Her entire life, everyone always liked him better. He was the popular one, the cool one, the fun one. Even to their parents, who somehow preferred his grinning mischievousness to her straight A’s. All she ever had was that shiny blue ribbon with the big #1 on it. Well, if being the best on paper was all that was available to her, then it would be hers.</p><p>Iris bested both her and Dylan in marksmanship, and Jake has the fastest mile. But Daphne is seated first in the other categories and overall, with Dylan nowhere in sight. This entire experience might end up being cathartic.</p><p class="gifs">










</p><p>He protests and says that he’s doing just fine, but Daphne can see that she’s getting under his skin.</p><p>She can be merciful…</p><p class="gifs">








</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  


</p><p>Oh, great…</p><p class="gifs">
  



</p><p>Daphne couldn’t allow herself to be too surprised that Iris had an interest in Dylan: he had always done well in that department. Even in middle school her friends had loved it when he was around. “Let’s go to Daphne’s house!”, “Sleepover at Daphne’s!” You would have thought they would have been too embarrassed to date someone two grades under, but no.</p><p>Dylan, of course, had not held back out of respect for her. She had lost friends to him, of which she always had too few to spare. Literally billions of women on the planet and he has to poach from her tiny circle.</p><p>Was this really still happening to her?</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  
</p><p>Dylan has always figured that one of things people like best about him is that he never comes across like he has something to prove. He has always figured that one of things that people like <em>least</em> about Daphne is that she has <em>everything</em> to prove and when she has proved it, she makes sure everyone knows.</p><p>She had probably been counting down the minutes until the class rankings were posted, just so that she could rub his face in it. He would have been perfectly content to simply graduate—after all, he had his parents to make sure he didn’t end up posted in Jackson or Oklahoma City—but if she wants to throw down the gauntlet he isn’t going to just walk away. She is far too gleeful about her ranking, and if there is anything Dylan enjoys, it’s taking his sister down a peg or two. She has it coming, and at this point, for him, it’s a matter of pride. He has had more than enough of her smug grins.</p><p class="gifs">




</p><p>Clearly she isn’t taking him seriously. That’s fine. She will.</p><p class="gifs">







</p><p>They execute the exercise perfectly but are more frustrated the other didn’t slip-up than glad they succeeded as a team.</p><p class="gifs">



</p><p>He can’t help but stare at her for a second. She looks formidable holding that gun, like a true action heroine and not the girl she usually is—the one who needs half a minute and three breaths to say how she wants her coffee made. Dylan had spent a lot of time wondering why she was here. He doesn’t think the standard response of “I want to help people” really applies. But looking at her now he realizes: she loves it. She could have made a lot of money doing something else—practicing law or whatever (she could do anything, she really could)—but she’s here. This is what she wants to do.</p><p>Daphne never let herself fail at anything, so he had never doubted that she could be an FBI agent. But this is the first time it has occurred to him that it might actually be the right fit for her.</p><p>As for him, this is the only thing he had ever really wanted to do. As a kid he had wanted to be just like his heroic mom and dad, protecting people and catching bad guys. He knows a lot more about the real job now—paperwork, failures, red tape, cases that take years. (He knows a lot more about his parents too.) He still wants to do it. He thinks people ought to be able to feel safe. Even if what he does is only a drop in a bucket.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Chapter 11</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  






</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Chapter 12</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  




</p><p>She’s not sure if he is abandoning her out of revenge; actually prioritizing tasteless afternoon sex with some girl who literally means less to him than his favorite belt over choosing a gift for their father’s birthday; or just being his typical irresponsible self, but she shouldn’t have even allowed herself to expect better of him. She needs to stop giving him the chance to let her down.</p><p>She’s less than surprised to come back home only to find him trying to “borrow” her assignments. He always falls back onto the easy road. She was amazed when she found him at the shooting range actual working at something for once, but she should have known better.</p><p class="gifs">
  



</p><p>OK, she’s impressed that he managed to hack her laptop password (maybe he <em>is</em> learning a thing or two), but if he thinks he can stand her up, miss class, and then cheat off of her hard work, he is painfully mistaken.</p><p>She’s almost glad to have the chance to pull out her torture twist. She hasn’t used it since 10th grade. In typical little brother fashion, Dylan has always believed that what is hers is his.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Chapter 13</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  







</p><p>It isn’t too difficult to figure out that she’s even less happy with him than usual.</p><p class="gifs">
  




</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Chapter 14</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The cold front continues, through their father’s birthday dinner and right on into the next week.</p><p class="gifs">
  


</p><p>When he realizes she’s more angry about him skipping out on their shopping plans and being left to do it on her own than she is about him stealing her homework, he feels briefly contrite. It was a shitty thing to do. He would do it again, but it was a shitty thing.</p><p class="gifs">
  


</p><p>Naturally, this all had to coincide with a partner field assignment which involved the two of them alone in a filing room for the entire day. They weren’t even standing next to each other when the agent selected them both for the worst assignment available. He must have recognized them as Kanes and has some kind of grudge against their parents—why else would you stick the two prettiest into a windowless closet to do the most tedious work known to man?</p><p class="gifs">
  

</p><p>She didn’t say a single word to him the entire day that wasn’t all-business and he almost has to admire her commitment to freezing him out. Only Daphne would choose being bored out of her mind over giving an inch.</p><p>He felt bad, but he doesn’t anymore. He’s over this. Now she’s just being melodramatic. She’s milking her feelings of indignation, like she always does. She gets off on being wronged. He practically did her a favor, because now she gets to feel self-righteous.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. Chapter 15</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They get teamed up again a couple of days later, but for once he’s glad he’s with her.</p>
<p class="gifs">
  





</p>
<p>A collection of essays by Karl Marx inside a different book jacket…a definite clue.</p>
<p class="gifs">
  

</p>
<p>Not that he cares about impressing her, but he’s pretty sure she’s impressed.</p><hr/>
<p class="gifs">
  

</p>
<p>It would seem that when Dylan is actually trying he is halfway competent. Shit.</p>
<p>Should she be proud? Was that weird given the circumstances? She’s maybe a little bit proud of him.</p>
<p class="gifs">
  

</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0016"><h2>16. Chapter 16</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  










</p><p>Did that mean scenario C was the right answer?</p><p>Shit.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0017"><h2>17. Chapter 17</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  
</p><p>His time out at the shooting range was apparently making a big difference. He had beat out previous champion Iris the week before and it seems he had done it again.</p><p>He says something about having magic hands. She’s not really listening, because he isn’t just doing well in marksmanship…he’s doing well in everything.</p><p class="gifs">
  
</p><p>The Lord is testing her… Dylan has to have divine sponsorship, he can’t be doing this on his own. He’s never had that kind of motivation. As easy as things always came to him, he usually lacked the effort required to actually accomplish anything significant.</p><p class="gifs">
  

</p><p>She’s not worried, but…This <em>is</em> just the <em>tiniest</em> bit worrisome. One week is a fluke, and she knew about flukes. Two is a pattern.</p><p class="gifs">
  


</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0018"><h2>18. Chapter 18</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>So she’ll have to bring it a little bit more than she has been. That’s fine.</p><p>She can do that.</p><p class="gifs">
  








</p><p>There. What had she been so worried about? He’s one of the best trainees here, sure, and that did surprise her, a little, maybe more than it should have, but it’s not like he’s making her look bad.</p><p class="gifs">
  

</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0019"><h2>19. Chapter 19</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Their peers had already taken to calling them “The Kanes”. As in, “There go The Kanes, lapping us. Motherfuckers.” Most of them didn’t even know that Daphne and Dylan’s father was an assistant director—they were content to hate them merely for excelling.</p><p class="gifs">
  
</p><p>Daphne didn’t love that she was being associated with Dylan, rather than being recognized on her own, but she supposed it was inevitable when the two of them were together at the head of the pack. And, because fate was cruel, the class was usually divided up by last name, which meant she and Dylan almost always ended up in the same group.</p><p class="gifs">
  

</p><p>When she heard “H-L, follow me” on the first day she knew it spelled trouble. (Apparently the dorms were divvied out the same way, which is why she found herself across the hall from his room like she was back in her frickin’ childhood home.)</p><p class="gifs">
  

</p><p>And it was only natural that they gravitated towards each other a little, knowing each other so well, and everyone else hardly at all.</p><p class="gifs">
  


</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0020"><h2>20. Chapter 20</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  
</p>
<p>They’re assigned together yet again—at least for something fun this time. It’s a simulation of chasing down and arresting a suspect but it’s off campus so it feels real.</p>
<p class="gifs">
  




</p>
<p>Daphne’s in her usual form: contrary.</p>
<p>He’s all ready to get out of the car when…</p>
<p class="gifs">
  



</p>
<p>She’s going to taste bitter fruit the next time he’s in charge.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0021"><h2>21. Chapter 21</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs"> </p><p>Is she actually trying to <em>flirt</em>? Dylan wants to criticize her technique <em>so</em> badly (she’s smiling like something out of a Japanese cartoon—and not a sexy one, one made for kids) but it seems, at the very least, to be working on Jake. Not that he’s exactly spoiled for choice on campus.</p><p>Still, Dylan can grudgingly admit that Daphne is… possibly not the worst looking one here. (Good genes and all that.)</p><p class="gifs"> </p><p>All of her bad qualities are on the <em>inside</em>.</p><p class="gifs">
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0022"><h2>22. Chapter 22</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  

  



</p><p>He actually congratulates her after they kick ass together at the plane-hijacking exercise. She’s almost on the verge of saying something corny about how they ‘actually make a pretty good team’, like they’re in the denouement of a buddy-cop comedy, when Dylan reminds her, as obnoxiously as possible, that she didn’t announce she was law enforcement before jumping into the fray. No one knows how to squander her goodwill like he does.</p><p>They finally move on to a surveillance unit in the second month. It’s one area where she feels like she doesn’t know what she’s doing. Dylan has an advantage on her—he worked in an electronics store in high school and knows all about cameras. She can’t wait to hear his pedantic tone: “And this part here is called a lens.”</p><p class="gifs">
  



</p><p>He’s still the class clown. (She’s ashamed to admit that he can be funny… sometimes). His high school graduating class voted him “Most likely to amuse a group of people”.</p><p>Daphne was voted “Most likely to leave a party early.” And it wasn’t even one of the categories.</p><p>She’s not much more popular here at Quantico, but at least Jake likes her.</p><p class="gifs">
  


</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0023"><h2>23. Chapter 23</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">     </p><p>As if he’s here just to be a tool for her improvement. That’s so typical of her. She doesn’t care about <em>his</em> goals; she doesn’t even acknowledge that he has any.</p><p>Her flirtation with Jake has her in a good mood, but he doesn’t trust it.</p><p class="gifs">
  
</p><p>A part of Dylan believes every word, but whether she means what she says or not, the fact that she’s saying it at all can only be a ploy of some kind to throw him off. Daphne can play mind games like no one else. And she certainly doesn’t volunteer sentiment without an agenda, at least not to him.</p><p>He’ll never forget how she tricked him into accepting blame for crashing their father’s car. His allowance was docked for <em>two years</em> and their parents still don’t believe in his innocence. She’ll never catch him being that gullible again.</p><p>He can’t even <em>remember</em> how she got him so twisted around…</p><p>That’s how good she is.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0024"><h2>24. Chapter 24</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The program takes them on a weekend excursion to practice hostage and shootout scenarios in a fake neighborhood. It’s fun, and they have more free time than usual, so Daphne decides to take advantage of the hotel accommodations and blow off a little steam with Jake.</p><p>…Only to wake up Sunday morning to find that Dylan had coaxed him out jogging in the early hours and he was long gone. Dylan must have messed with her phone at some point because her alarm doesn’t go off.</p><p>Daphne always sets an alarm.</p><p class="gifs">
  



</p><p>A night with Jake during the weekend field trip was supposed to relieve her stress. She should have figured Dylan would find a way to make it the most stressful part.</p><p>She makes her way back to Quantico via the most expensive cab ride of her life only to find that she’s got a demerit note in her file for fraternizing with a fellow trainee and frowning faces all around for having missed the bus.</p><p>She tracks down Jake, who informs her that after they missed her at breakfast Dylan had said he was going back to her hotel room to make sure she was up. But even though that was clearly a lie, Jake doesn’t believe her when she tells him that Dylan was the one who turned them in because “Dylan’s a cool guy, he wouldn’t do that.”</p><p>Sure.</p><p class="gifs">
  







</p><p>Lines had been crossed. She gave him the chance to say he was sorry. If he didn’t take it, that was on him.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0025"><h2>25. Chapter 25</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  
  









</p><p>She only means it as a joke—leave the handcuffs on just long enough to scare him—but once she has them on him she wonders if maybe it shouldn’t just be a joke. If she wasn’t worried about getting in trouble, she would have left the cuffs on. It’s not like he doesn’t have it coming. Failing an exercise is nothing compared to what he did to her.</p><p class="gifs">
  







</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0026"><h2>26. Chapter 26</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They’re doing close combat practice in the afternoons and Daphne is silently begging the instructor to match her up with Dylan.</p><p class="gifs">




</p><p>But he takes Dylan for himself. (Probably because he’s sick of Dylan’s shit-eating grins just like she is.)</p><p class="gifs">



</p><p>She wants to be able to thoroughly enjoy watching Dylan get his ass handed to him by an expert…</p><p class="gifs">



</p><p>But some sort of unwelcome protective instinct kicks in.</p><p class="gifs">

</p><p>When it’s all over, and she’s certain that that roundabout punch to his spine didn’t do any permanent damage—she’s back to wishing she could have been the one to take him down.</p><p>He handles his loss with such self-deprecating grace and charm that the class loves him as if he had just humiliated everyone’s least favorite instructor. How does he do it? She’s almost charmed herself.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0027"><h2>27. Chapter 27</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It seems like Dylan has no intention of heeding her advice about drinking too much during the program. They’re allowed on the weekend to let loose ‘a little’, but some of their instructors are actually at the bar with them!</p><p class="gifs">
  

</p><p>And she’s really not sure about this best bros act he suddenly has going with Jake.</p><p class="gifs">
  


</p><p>She didn’t bring it up at first, but after the scene at the bar, she’s got to ask.</p><p class="gifs">
  






</p><p>Apparently Dylan didn’t only steal her girlfriends to be his girlfriends, he also stole her beaus to be his bros.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0028"><h2>28. Chapter 28</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">






</p><p>Where the hell does Natalie get off thinking that just because she has a brother she’s some kind of authority on normal? She doesn’t know shit about her and Dylan.</p><p>Maybe she and Dylan are unusually competitive—OK, they definitely are—but that is <em>not</em> a bad thing. It made them ambitious. It made them who they are. They were both doing a helluva lot better than Natalie, probably because of each other.</p><p>Had years of jokes about selling him to another family left Daphne unable to articulate the fact that she was (at least partly) glad Dylan was her brother?</p><p>Of course, she could never say that to him. Not even at gunpoint.</p><p>…OK, maybe that <em>wasn’t</em> normal.</p><p>Natalie not minding her own business is typical, but Daphne can’t let it go like she would typically do. She can’t help but feel that Natalie had more to say, but chose not to say it. It leaves Daphne unsettled, like it might be sprung on her unexpectedly at some point in the future.</p><p class="gifs">


</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0029"><h2>29. Chapter 29</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  


  






</p><p>She is more than a little embarrassed that her father heard her talking like that—it wasn’t the image she had cultivated with her parents—but she does her best to hide that from Dylan. She fails.</p><p>It’s not quite as bad as that time their dad had walked in on Daphne beating her little brother into the floor with toy boxing gloves—Dylan’s, not hers. She had been 11, which was, her dad said, old enough to know better. (Though maybe not, since that is what she is planning to do to Dylan later today—almost 20 years later.) He grounded her for two weeks—a fairly intense punishment for an 11-year-old. It had been well worth it, even though she can’t even remember what Dylan had done to incur her wrath.</p><p>By the time Dylan gained his courage back to challenge her (that is, grew an inch or two), it was too late to hit a girl, even if she had it coming, and Daphne could admit that there were times when she’d had it coming. Actually, Dylan had always been something of a gentleman when it came to not hitting her. She had to admire his self-control. He even took it easy on her in training. Not every little brother would have been so accommodating. Then again, it did make it easier for him to look like the nice, laid-back one to their parents.</p><p>Good thing she’s too old to be grounded. Though she may not be too old to get one of their parents’ infamous lectures: whenever their parents heard them fighting, they always had something to say about how they should support each other and how they might someday find themselves without anyone except for each other, so they should treat their relationship with the same care as one that they <em>didn’t</em> take for granted. That inevitably a day would come along when would wish they had been nicer to one another.</p><p>And other nonsense.</p><p class="gifs">
  



</p><p>Daphne doesn’t want to admit to it, but it feels pretty good being FBI royalty, everyone staring on jealously as she and Dylan chat intimately with the man who will be a boss to all of them when they graduate.</p><p>The last thing she wants to do is trade on her last name rather than her own abilities, but it’s a nice high, feeling like her family is special.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0030"><h2>30. Chapter 30</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>War had to wait—<em>mostly</em>—while Dad was visiting, but now that he’s gone it’s back on.</p><p class="gifs">
  






</p><p>She might have lost her appetite for it, though. He has never looked at her like that…And she had sent him to the emergency room once for stitches. If she had known he had already been reprimanded for leaving campus to go drink at the bar she never would have reported him. Shit.</p><p>She’s not actually trying to get him kicked out. Even at the start she didn’t really want that. Avoiding him or coming out on top in their rivalry certainly doesn’t equate wanting to ruin his life.</p><p>Two marks against him for more serious offenses than her single one…no wonder he’s pissed.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0031"><h2>31. Chapter 31</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  

  


</p><p>A passing smile in the hallway isn’t amends, she knows that, but can’t he at least see that she’s (mostly) sorry?</p><p>It would probably help if she apologized. Out loud. With words.</p><p>But she’s still got her pride, you know?</p><p class="gifs">
  







</p><p>And he sure doesn’t make it easy.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0032"><h2>32. Chapter 32</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Daphne never would have said that she and Dylan ‘got along’. But now that she has seen it could get worse, she knows their adversarial dynamic had been more…frenemy than anything else.</p><p class="gifs">
  

</p><p>He’s still holding her—apparently <em>unsportsmanlike</em>—behavior against her. (Which…OK, what she did was bad and she has her regrets, but…it’s not like it’s so far beyond anything he has or would have done.) She didn’t know shoulders got this cold, or took this long to thaw, and she was something of an expert. Her mind keeps protesting that she was just giving him a taste of his own medicine, that he had it coming, and worse …but she craves his forgiveness.</p><p>She doesn’t like that he doesn’t think she played fair.</p><p class="gifs">
  




</p><p>She’s actually glad the professor paired them together. This is the first time he has turned down the volume on his death glare. Is he finally starting to get over it?</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0033"><h2>33. Chapter 33</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">













</p><p>Dylan had heard some crazy things in his time, but…</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0034"><h2>34. Chapter 34</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  
  
  
  
  
  
</p><p>Dylan had suspected something, and had hired a private investigator to check it out. She wants to hate him for investigating with such tenacity, as if he wanted it to be true.</p><p class="gifs">
  
  
  
</p>
<hr/><p class="gifs">
  
</p><p>Based on her determined march, Dylan thought she had some kind of plan. But he follows her back to her room, and she just sits down on her bed and starts to cry, abandoning her mission.</p><p>It’s very unlike her, and he’s not really quite sure what to do.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0035"><h2>35. Chapter 35</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Conveniently—or perhaps for the worst—they have a late start the next day for classes. Daphne drags Dylan out to the car she had leased for her time at Quantico and drives furiously to Washington to see their father, despite Dylan’s best efforts to talk her out of any kind of confrontation. Their father is surprised to see them but has a quick guess as to why they are there when he sees the looks on their faces.</p><p class="gifs">








</p><p>She’s silent on the drive back. He can almost see all the little cracks running through her.</p><p>Dylan has had his suspicions for months, but he’s just as angry. Eventually he’ll tell her that it’s why he skipped out on birthday shopping and other celebratory gestures.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0036"><h2>36. Chapter 36</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When they get back to campus, Daphne disappears for a what he can only assume is an extremely strenuous run, and then sits down next to him in class after lunch, seeming like she’s finally ready to talk about it.</p><p class="gifs">










</p><p>It’s probably the first time in his entire life that Daphne has <em>asked</em> him to be nice to her.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0037"><h2>37. Chapter 37</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  











</p><p>God, Iris just would not let an opportunity to hit on Dylan pass her by. Can’t she see they’re in the middle of a family crisis? Daphne’s gratified that for once Dylan didn’t respond in kind.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0038"><h2>38. Chapter 38</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">

</p><p>Daphne can’t bear to speak to their mother. She tells Dylan to make some excuse for her and let’s him carry the burden. He tries to make it seem like everything is normal but their mother has a talent for reading Dylan’s face and isn’t buying it. He isn’t on the verge of bawling like Daphne is but there’s a very obvious heaviness about him.</p><p class="gifs">


</p><p>Their mother is outwardly formidable, but her children know she is deeply sensitive in a restrained and reserved kind of way. She never makes big shows of emotion but she feels things strongly. They had seen it when she discussed her difficult cases and when her own mother had died from cancer. Nothing compromised her composure, and yet you could hear it in the nuanced inflections in her voice. They both have a fear of seeing her heart opened up to the world because she had always been the family’s rock.</p><p class="gifs">








</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0039"><h2>39. Chapter 39</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Their parents are on their minds but there’s not much they can do. They’re still in that stage where they are hoping the problem will fix itself while they turn their heads. It’s easy enough to look away—Quantico keeps them pretty busy.</p><p>The class is divided into teams for a S.W.A.T.-type exercise. Dylan had a plan to get into the surveillance room and he pulled Daphne to go along with him once he realized how well they were able to communicate silently. They pulled off the maneuver and captured Iris, who was on the other team, in the process. It was easy to direct the rest of their team once they could see the big picture.</p><p class="gifs">      </p><p>This certainly isn’t the first time they’ve found themselves partnered up on an exercise, but it’s the first time it was by choice, and it’s news that they can accomplish so much when they’re actually <em>trying</em> to cooperate. Daphne was so embarrassed after she had bawled in front of Dylan but it has made him—at least temporarily—somewhat nice, so maybe it wasn’t the gigantic mistake she had feared.</p><p>She hasn’t cried like that in years (not even when she failed the entrance exams), and never in front of someone (especially not Dylan), not since she was a little kid.</p><p>What Iris said about the two of them not being friends rankles her a little. They’re not always like oil and water. Everyone needs to keep their unsolicited opinions about her relationship with Dylan to themselves.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0040"><h2>40. Chapter 40</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>After Daphne avoids the facetime chat with their mother, their mother begins calling twice a day to hear from her daughter. Daphne tells Dylan that she just can’t do it—she can’t talk to her and pretend like everything is okay. She doesn’t want to have to lie. Dylan gets that—he even respects it—but their mom isn’t going to suddenly stop calling. It’s only going to make her more persistent.</p><p>Daphne had Dylan answer her phone for her that morning and tell their mother that she couldn’t talk because she was in the shower. He put her phone in his pocket without realizing it while wondering if their mother would think it was weird that he was hanging around in Daphne’s room while she showered.</p><p class="gifs">





</p><p>After the way he messed with her alarm when they were at the hotel she really should have started using a passcode…but it was such an inconvenience.</p><p class="gifs">



</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0041"><h2>41. Chapter 41</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">











</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0042"><h2>42. Chapter 42</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">



</p><p>As promised, their mother comes to Quantico the next day. She has an official excuse but Dylan and Daphne both know she’s there because she’s tired of getting the run-around from her daughter. She can probably sense something’s up with Dylan too, he figures. She had strong investigative instincts. She was a bloodhound. Their father had gone the administrative route in the bureau; their mother was the one who got put on all the high-profile cases.</p><p>Daphne was the same. She would choose the work, the hunt. She didn’t enjoy managing people. (Even if she enjoyed being above them.)</p><p>Dylan supposed he was the one more like their father. No, he was definitely like him. Though given what he had done, Dylan wasn’t too keen on the comparison at the moment.</p><p class="gifs">



</p><p>That glorious morning when their father showed up and caught Daphne making an ass out of herself felt like so long ago…Apparently he had made the day sound eventful when he had reported it to their mother.</p><p class="gifs">






</p><p>Their mother isn’t good with words—she expresses herself with actions. They can tell she is concerned by how expensive the restaurant is.</p><p>Daphne comes along willingly—she knows she can’t avoid it—but she is quiet and rigid. She keeps looking to Dylan to answer for her.</p><p>First thing, their mother comments on how impressed she is at how well they are getting along, especially given what their father had told her after seeing them at each other’s throats. If only she knew what had led to the detente…</p><p>They had decided to pretend like everything was normal, but their mother still isn’t buying it. Dylan cracks a few jokes to appease her worries, but Daphne has no talent for this kind of subterfuge. She eventually has to make up a story about a bad break up and their mother seems mostly satisfied.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0043"><h2>43. Chapter 43</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Their parents both made frequent trips to Quantico, to speak to the trainees or consult with the agents that worked there. As a speaker their mother isn’t very entertaining but her pointers are invaluable: no one can scan CCTV like she can. They call her Eagle Eye.</p><p>It was painfully ironic that she was known for being observant and yet remained clueless about her own husband’s infidelity. But people could be pretty dense about what was right in front of them.</p><p class="gifs">


</p><p>It’s the end of the day and they’re both aware that this is their last chance to speak to their mother in person.</p><p class="gifs">

</p><p>Dylan is experiencing the first of many flip-flops on the subject. His instinct is to protect his mother from heartache, but seeing her as such a boss in the front of the room makes him feel like it’s cruel to keep her in ignorance.</p><p class="gifs">








</p><p>Daphne thinks she’s making a point but he might have to call her bluff. Maybe Dylan won’t have to be the one to do it. There’s someone else who really ought to…</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0044"><h2>44. Chapter 44</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  
























</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0045"><h2>45. Chapter 45</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dylan doesn’t tell Daphne about the visit he paid to their father; he’s certain she wouldn’t agree with him pushing their father to act since she’s still hoping they’ll blink and the whole situation will have magically disappeared. Dylan’s not exactly proud, but he had to steal her keys while she was in the bathroom and borrow her car so he wouldn’t have to explain himself. (…And maybe a little bit because he wasn’t certain she would have voluntarily lent her car to him—even though <em>she’s</em> the one with the crashed car in her history). The careful math he did for the gas tank is apparently paying off—it doesn’t seem like Daphne ever found out.</p><p>They are paired up yet again a couple of days later, and Dylan is astonished when Daphne tells him that he should do the computer stuff because they’re behind and he’s “faster at it”. (It seems like he made a good impression on her in the S.W.A.T. exercise.)</p><p>Were those pigs flying by?</p><p class="gifs">








</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0046"><h2>46. Chapter 46</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  





</p><p>She’s not really able to process what just happened.</p><p>So she doesn’t.</p><p>And hopefully Alex doesn’t either.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0047"><h2>47. Chapter 47</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">








</p><p>Dylan reassures her that he and Will are already “BFFs”.</p><p class="gifs">




</p><p>She had been so busy training and studying and fretting about their parents that she had totally neglected her laundry, so Dylan had lent her a shirt a week or so ago. She hadn’t really felt like she knew Alex or Iris or any of the others well enough to borrow clothes from them, and all the trainees had packed lightly so no one had much to spare. All the more reason why she should have given Dylan his shirt back already, but when she saw it sitting there earlier—freshly laundered, folded, and ready to return—it was the only thing she wanted to put on.</p><p class="gifs">



</p><p>She’s really off her game…</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0048"><h2>48. Chapter 48</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They take a series of personality tests as part of their profiling unit. (It’s a lot more fun than their usual homework.) Daphne thinks it’s too easy to trick the tests—it’s easy to see what the questions are getting at—but when she’s honest the results are right on the money.</p><p class="gifs">
  





</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0049"><h2>49. Chapter 49</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Iris and Dylan partner up on a different profiling assignment a few days later into the unit, and by the time Daphne realizes that Dylan is already taken there is no one left for her to be with. Standing there, all by herself, she wants to feel betrayed; but she had no reason to expect Dylan would hold out for her. It probably didn’t even occur to him that he would be her go-to. It didn’t even occur to <em>her</em>, until her go-to couldn’t be gone-to and it all seemed so brutally obvious.</p>
<p>It’s stupid, really. She should be branching out, making connections. These people will be her colleagues, her resources.</p>
<p>…And yet she finds herself seeking out Dylan anyway. They will be profiling their classmates, and the thought that he and Iris might choose to profile her is too deeply terrifying. As much as she hates to admit it, Dylan really does <em>know</em> her.</p>
<p>They profile Dylan’s new roommate Will, and then outline a plan they would implement if approaching him as a potential informant.</p>
<p class="gifs">       </p>
<p>Iris makes it clear she would have preferred to have been alone with Dylan and being the third wheel takes Daphne right back to high school. But at least Dylan had welcomed her to group warmly enough.</p>
<p class="gifs">           </p>
<p>Daphne enjoys working with Iris so much she makes sure they partner up in their next activity.</p>
<p class="gifs">     </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0050"><h2>50. Chapter 50</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dylan had always thought the instructors were cruel sadists but they really outdo themselves with a hostage exercise that the trainees are supposed to—and <em>do</em>—believe is real. A group of armed men swarm campus, “shooting” some of the instructors and security and grouping the students into the lecture hall. It crosses Dylan’s mind as it’s happening that it’s all fake but he’s not willing to take that chance because Daphne had briefly ducked out of class to retrieve something from her car and now he has no idea where she is.</p><p>With all the conspiracy theories going around about the FBI, it doesn’t seem unreasonable that some extremist nuts might make an attack.</p><p>No matter how many times he tells himself that it’s probably just an exercise, he can’t calm down until he knows she’s OK.</p><p class="gifs">         </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0051"><h2>51. Chapter 51</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Despite Iris’ (fair) warnings, Will agrees to come with him. Dylan begins to despair after they strike out in the first four places they look, then Dylan notices how closely Daphne is parked to the woods and decides it’s worth a try.</p><p class="gifs">                </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0052"><h2>52. Chapter 52</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They spot a few of the armed intruders patrolling in the woods but manage to avoid being noticed. Dylan wants the three of them to find a hiding spot and make a plan but Daphne is so ashamed of having been crippled by fear when the attack first began that she’s ready to rush in and liberate the lecture hall with nothing but her prop gun. Dylan convinces her to at least attempt raiding the firing range first, but they get rounded up there and sent back to the classroom.</p>
<p>The enemy turns the heat up on high and locks them all in. After probing for an escape route they find a bomb instead.</p>
<p>No one is certain that it’s real, but no one is certain that it isn’t, especially with the clock ticking down so fast.</p>
<p class="gifs">
  


</p>
<p>It’s not easy for Daphne to give up control, but even she can admit she’s no explosives expert.</p>
<p class="gifs">
  



</p>
<p>Of course that wasn’t “it”. They failed to stop the countdown, but the bomb didn’t explode. The lights came on, the doors opened, and everyone who had been shot and done the shooting came walking right back in.</p>
<p>Their instructors told them that it wasn’t a <em>test</em>, it was a lesson. A lesson about fear, and managing fear. They didn’t cut anyone, but they said that anyone who was smart enough to get into the program should be smart enough to know if they should walk away. And some people did.</p>
<p>Dylan can tell Daphne is wondering if she should. And he can’t believe what a reversal it is from the first few weeks of the academy that he is the one telling her that she shouldn’t, that she belongs here.</p>
<p>But it’s not as if he ever believed that she didn’t.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0053"><h2>53. Chapter 53</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dylan expects a hero’s greeting from Daphne when the class meets the following day but she is running lukewarm and cold—and mostly cold. The bewildering development coincides with what is probably the program’s second toughest assignment—the Kobayashi Maru of the FBI Academy. Daphne’s not getting the hint that it’s a no-win scenario and the lesson is about failure. What a week.</p><p class="gifs">



</p><p>She’s really not going to let it go, is she?</p><p class="gifs">


</p><p>She won’t accept failure because she feels like she just failed yesterday. And because she’s no good at accepting failure in any situation.</p><p class="gifs">




</p><p>Dylan thinks he deserves some kind of honorary psych degree for figuring out that Daphne’s envious of how well he kept his cool during the infiltration/bomb fake out, and that she’s taking her damsel-in-distress shame out on him now that she’s had enough time to figure out how she can blame him for what’s going wrong with her life. As usual.</p><p>“Blame Dylan” is page two in her Guide To Dealing handbook. It’s a work of staggering denial.</p><p>She’s also having PTSD flashbacks to the first time she took the entrance exams, when she didn’t pass. She wants to let two bad days define her.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0054"><h2>54. Chapter 54</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Rankings get posted for the first time in a few weeks..</p><p class="gifs">
  





</p><p>“Nosedived” is an exaggeration, but he and Daphne are only upper mid-range. A significant fall in placement.</p><p class="gifs">
  

</p><p>Every time Dylan glances over at Daphne, she’s still staring in crushed disbelief at the list.</p><p class="gifs">
  





</p><p>She makes it sound like they haven’t been trying their best all along, and Dylan wants to believe that the whole rankings thing is totally rigged, and this so-called “upset” is entirely for psychological purposes, but he knows he and Daphne have both been slipping since they learned about their father’s affair. They haven’t been as on-task when they’ve been working together, and they’ve pretty much always been working together.</p><p>Maybe they had both been motivated all along by the now-faltering desire to please their now fallen-idol father. Or maybe they’re just distracting each other…</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0055"><h2>55. Chapter 55</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  





</p><p>They flop on their next assignment, and Daphne almost has a breakdown. She’s feeling the pressure after the new rankings, and if she thinks she can’t be physically aggressive taking down suspects like in the intruder exercise, then she has to at least be the best investigator around.</p><p>At least, that’s what Dylan assumes is going on inside her head. She doesn’t want to talk about it. She doesn’t want to talk about anything. Which ought to be a relief, but…isn’t?</p><p>He can admit he was a nosy little brother when they were kids, but this is the first time as an adult when he really wishes he could get inside her head and dig around in there. They’ve spent so much time together over the past few weeks that he finds himself wondering what she’s thinking—about the assignment, about herself, even about him. (And Daphne telling him what she thought of him was traditionally <em>not</em> something he wanted. He has no idea why he’s craving it now.)</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0056"><h2>56. Chapter 56</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Informant training continues, and their assignment takes them out into the field again. They don’t need partners but Dylan navigates through the crowd over to Daphne anyway. He’s not sure if he’s seeking her opinion specifically, or if he just doesn’t want to work alone. Or maybe it’s just second nature now. She has been weird ever since the hostage exercise, but even weirder since the rankings were posted. He doesn’t understand it, and it’s getting under his skin. She smiles at him as he sits down but he gets the distinct impression that she’s not glad of his company. Since Daphne isn’t in the habit of smiling at him just to be polite, he’s more uneasy than ever.</p><p class="gifs">
  




</p><p>He really shouldn’t be surprised…but he is. He hadn’t really been thinking of it as something…temporary.</p><p class="gifs">
  





</p><p>So that’s how it is?</p><p>He knew she had intimacy issues, but as her brother—and often a somewhat estranged one at that—he had never expected to be on the receiving end of them.</p><p>She’s scared of something. Of losing her edge, probably. Maybe she’s right…but it doesn’t feel right.</p><p>He lets her steal his mark.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0057"><h2>57. Chapter 57</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  




</p><p>Jake is probably the wrong person to be talking to about this, since Jake has some kind of Daphne-blindness and can’t see how messed up she is. Dylan finds himself talking about it anyway.</p><p class="gifs">
  



</p><p>Dylan thinks her actions do make sense…to her. He’s tired of trying to unravel her reasoning, because he knows things were going well between them and he knows that it was…nice. So what kind of head case do you have to be to sacrifice that—for what? Moving up a few places in the rankings? Especially when, with their parents’ connections, they could probably move up to DC after a few years no matter where they started out or how their career was going.</p><p class="gifs">
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0058"><h2>58. Chapter 58</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s more than a little satisfying when the instructor puts Dylan in charge two days after Daphne decides she’s better off working against him rather than with him. He would like to think she’s got regret oozing out of her pores, but she probably is only regretting her timing.</p><p class="gifs">
  

</p><p>No flies on Jake. He swoops right in to the fill the vacuum Dylan left behind.</p><p class="gifs">
  




</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0059"><h2>59. Chapter 59</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dylan can admit that he was less than benevolent as the acting agent-in-charge for the exercise earlier. Perhaps “petty tyrant” might have been the right description. He has been waiting all evening to hear what Daphne had to say about it but she’s far more subdued than he was expecting.</p><p class="gifs">
  








</p><p>It feels like their first week here all over again. There’s a little voice in his head telling him to be more mature, but he’s more in the habit of listening to the other little voice. The one that tells him to be an asshole.</p><p>She’s got this tiny hint of contrition in her eyes that makes him feel justified.</p><p class="gifs">
  



</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0060"><h2>60. Chapter 60</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It probably might be said that he’s just a little bit angry with her.</p><p class="gifs">
  

</p><p>It certainly hasn’t escaped her notice. Probably everyone else has noticed too. He doesn’t really care.</p><p class="gifs">
  
</p><p>It’s a long week.</p><p class="gifs">
  
</p><p>It’s a really long week.</p><p>At some point during the week he acknowledges that he’s milking his indignation and getting off on being wronged and nursing his bitterness just like he had always accused her of doing, but he figures it’s his turn. And the second he lets up she’ll think he has forgiven her, which he’s not ready to do. He can’t think of anything worse than giving her the impression that she ultimately made the right decision.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0061"><h2>61. Chapter 61</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">


</p><p>They’re on their second Monday since Daphne essentially rejected him in favor of…whatever she had been hoping to gain by it. He hates her for making a conscious decision to tear down what might have been the beginning of them having an actual relationship as supportive siblings. His whole life he had wondered what it would be like he and Daphne had been gotten along and been friends, and he caught a glimpse of it, but Daphne had made it obvious that it wasn’t as important to her as everything else.</p><p>He can tell by the look on her face that she expects him to be over it by now—but he’s not, and he’s a little peeved that she didn’t notice he had been aggressively avoiding her all weekend. (Probably because she had been doing the same thing.)</p><p class="gifs">


</p><p>He’s not sure whether he’s more insulted that she’s trying to convince him that she has done them both a favor by going her own way, or by her patronizing comment on his mile, which wasn’t even third place.</p><p>He should be gratified that she seems sorry, but it only makes him angrier because it means she knows she did something wrong but she’s still not apologizing. They don’t apologize to each other, they just don’t, so he really shouldn’t be awaiting one this time, but…He supposes needs it. There’s something different about this.</p><p>He hadn’t been on his guard when she hurt him.</p><p class="gifs">

</p><p>OK, that’s not his best work. He’s usually a little better on the fly than that.</p><p class="gifs">

</p><p>Wow, he’s really showing her. Too bad she’s never actually been insecure about her long-distance running speed.</p><p class="gifs">



</p>
<hr/><p class="gifs">

</p><p>Daphne had wanted him upset. She figured if he was angry, it would make it easier for them to resume their competitive dynamic after their…period of detente, or whatever it was. That dynamic had worked well for them, had gotten them ahead. (Working together had only caused them to “nosedive”. When she had been partnered with Dylan recently, she hadn’t even seemed to care that much about finishing first.)</p><p>But he seems more hurt than angry. And he has been besting her all week, and is finally rubbing her face in it, and she doesn’t really feel angry either. Just alone.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0062"><h2>62. Chapter 62</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They’re two-thirds through the academy, and starting a new unit on interrogation. It’s hard to quantify results, but the instructors do their best, dedicated as ever to pitting the trainees against each other and declaring winners and losers. Dylan has always had many thoughts on education, not having been a particular fan of class or homework at any point in his life, but for once he can say with absolute conviction—and not just laziness—that the system is wrong and should go fuck itself.</p><p>He wonders if he’ll ever be in a position to do anything about it. He wouldn’t have thought he had the drive to get high enough to be able to enact change, but he’s pretty sure he would do just about anything right now to be Daphne’s boss, and why stop there?</p><p>He’s still doing better than she is since their “split”. He’s trying as hard as he can—though he can’t imagine that’s any harder than she is trying—and he wants to believe he’s just naturally better, but he knows that’s not true either. So it must just be luck.</p><p>Or maybe she hasn’t gained her edge back like she thought she would. Is it too much to hope that it’s guilt keeping her down?</p><p class="gifs">
  



</p><p>Daphne is a master at asking the questions, but doesn’t handle being the interrogee very well. Her polygraph and pupil dilation are off the charts when the questions start getting personal and they’re asked to lie.</p><p class="gifs">
  
</p><p>She has all the oral deftness of her legal background but it’s obvious on the machines she isn’t being forthcoming with the whole truth.</p><p class="gifs">
  
</p><p>Daphne had always been an uneven liar. She could lie with confidence and ability under certain circumstances, but if she was too emotional or couldn’t force herself to believe the lie too, then she wavered—almost comically.</p><p>He remembered when her first boyfriend had broken up with her, when she was a sophomore in high school. She was so embarrassed she had been dumped that she tried to tell Dylan that he had only broken up with her because he was moving away, but Dylan hadn’t bought it for a second. (Though changing cities to get away from Daphne was as plausible as anything.) But another time she had intercepted his acceptance letter from his first choice college, ran around the room to keep it out of his hands, and told him that he hadn’t made it in. He had believed the lie then.</p><p>She was always at her best when she played on his insecurities.</p><p>Dylan would have loved getting the chance to put her through the ringer while she was hooked up to all manner of lie detection, but he’ll have to settle for the satisfaction of excelling at the exercise. He has always been able to keep his cool—if he was trying to.</p><p class="gifs">
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0063"><h2>63. Chapter 63</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She had been worried he wasn’t angry—but he is. Maybe he is hurt too but he is definitely angry. And she had been worried that <em>she</em> wasn’t angry either—but if she wasn’t before, she is now. He’s back to his old asshole self. Only it’s not quite working out the way she had hoped—he’s surpassing her in most areas. Is she suffering from a lack of skill, or has she given him a surplus of motivation?</p><p class="gifs">











</p><p>Dylan was always a jerk to her (at least he always had been, <em>before</em> that is…) but not usually to everyone else too.</p><p>Then again, if some other trainee had asked her to throw the exercise because he wasn’t cutting it, she wouldn’t have done it either.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0064"><h2>64. Chapter 64</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dylan had pushed his parents out of mind to focus on Quantico, and Daphne hasn’t brought them up either. (Not that the two of them are talking very much.) But Thanksgiving is coming at the end of the week, which means four days at home with Mom and Dad and the elephant in the room.</p><p>It has been a few weeks since Dylan had visited his father at work and encouraged him to come clean to his wife. His parents’ silence since then has him convinced that nothing has happened yet. A part of him is relieved—a fake Thanksgiving might be better than one that was all too real. But he’s pissed at his dad and not ready to let things go on without saying something about it.</p><p>He borrows Daphne’s car again (this time with her permission) and drives down to Washington. It’s not the kind of conversation he wants to have over the phone.</p><p class="gifs">
  












</p><p>He’s as slippery as ever. Dylan desperately wants to hope that his father’s laissez-faire attitude is hiding a deeply-agonizing indecision. Dylan’s paternal side of the family didn’t talk about their feelings and tried not to have any. It was a little frightening to know that his father was the most sensitive of the bunch.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0065"><h2>65. Chapter 65</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">









</p><p>Needless to say, they didn’t get a plan worked out.</p><p class="gifs">
  
</p>
<hr/><p class="gifs">






</p><p>OK, he should not have said that. Daphne had a long history of driving (definitely unworthy) guys away who couldn’t deal with her idiosyncrasies (a sensitive subject with her), but Dylan knew for a fact that Jake liked her a lot.</p><p>He almost calls out an apology as she walks away but he’s still waiting for his. She’ll have to settle for their traditional form of justice: they just give the other hell for an appropriate (or slightly longer than appropriate) period of time and then assume it’s understood that everyone is adequately sorry and squared.</p><p class="gifs">
  
</p><p>When this is all over and he really has forgiven her, he’ll offer a blanket apology and tell her that it was easier to be mean to her than admit that her decisions were hurting his feelings.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0066"><h2>66. Chapter 66</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">




</p><p>The holiday weekend from Hell is off to a great start.</p><p>She always acts like a reverse-chauffeur: when she’s driving, she expects him to carry her bags and wait on her hand and foot.</p><p class="gifs">


</p><p>He neglected to get Daphne’s car washed after his hour-long anger drive through the country on his way back from seeing their dad. She’s so fastidious—the dirtiness really irks her and he enjoys that too much.</p><p>It must really bother her that it sat in the lot all week looking like that.</p><p class="gifs">

</p><p>The drive home for Thanksgiving—after a pit stop at a car wash—is exactly as silent and awkward as they had both expected it to be. Dylan had researched buses, but it just didn’t make sense to find his own way when she was going to the exact same place at the exact same time. She fiddles with the radio too much and it’s annoying. She would rather drive her car off a cliff than listen to a song she didn’t like. He fidgets too much (and too loudly) with an empty chip bag and she rips it out of his hands and throws it out the window. Then she pulls over to find it because she doesn’t want to litter.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0067"><h2>67. Chapter 67</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There is a longtime tradition in their family of going out to a fancy dinner together the night before Thanksgiving, but Daphne manages to squeeze out of it by scraping together some visiting high school friends for a last minute get-together that she “can’t miss” . Dylan’s pretty sure there’s no one from high school that Daphne is truly interested in seeing again and he’s not entirely certain she’s not just going to a diner by herself to read. It’s hard to blame her for wanting to—it’s not much fun watching their philandering father and their possibly-oblivious possibly-not-oblivious mother talk about the weather—Dylan finds a way.</p><p class="gifs">


</p><p>It’s just so typical of her duck out when the emotional going gets tough. She can pull an all-nighter studying and then wrestle the entire trainee class the next day but God forbid she has to go out to dinner with her family when there might be feelings.</p><p class="gifs">


</p><p>Someday she wouldn’t be able to wriggle free. She would have to face it all head on. Maybe not this thing with their parents, but something else. He always imagines she’ll wake up one day when she’s old and realize she put off everything that was truly important and now it’s too late. He doesn’t want that for her.</p><p class="gifs">





</p><p>There’s a part of him that knows it’s just desserts for all the times he bailed on her, but…he would rather just be angry.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0068"><h2>68. Chapter 68</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">






</p><p>Their mother has heard the excuses about Daphne’s night out with old friends, but she knows that’s what it is—an excuse.</p><p class="gifs">






</p><p>His mother doesn’t press him about Daphne or anything else, and he’s glad. Dinner goes smoothly, but he feels that’s only the case because everyone is trying so hard to pretend.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0069"><h2>69. Chapter 69</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Daphne doesn’t take his advice about getting her beauty sleep—she’s awake, showered, dressed, and sneaking out for Starbucks before his eyes have even adjusted to the daylight.</p><p class="gifs">


</p><p>She tells him that they had a great time.</p><p class="gifs">



</p><p>Her eyes go wide for a second and he’s more convinced than ever that the entire thing was a fabrication.</p><p class="gifs">

</p><p>She’s quick to clarify that she means “real” ones.</p><p class="gifs">














</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0070"><h2>70. Chapter 70</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s a relief to be back at Quantico, though even Daphne is growing tired of the relentless coursework and training. Her mother told her children and her husband that she wanted a “nice holiday”, and everyone understood what she meant and obeyed the directive—nevertheless, it was a stressful weekend. Too stressful. It makes her long for the days of Dylan taunting her about her admittance test scores, a time she never thought she would remember with nostalgia. And she had longed to be back running suicide drills and highlighting hostage protocols in her textbooks.</p><p>Her father had left for a long period Sunday afternoon and disappeared for several private phone calls over the course of the weekend. Daphne tried to ignore it—but it grew harder and harder. The worst part was that it might have been for work, but she didn’t know, she would always suspect he was up to no good. Dylan observed with some satisfaction that she was starting to simmer. By the end of it, she was still uncertain about spilling the truth to their mother, but quite convinced that the situation wasn’t going to fix itself and something had to be done.</p><p class="gifs">

</p><p>They take the first day back as space from each other, but Dylan seeks her out on day 2. She likes the lecture hall when it’s empty. It’s a room big enough to hold all of her thoughts.</p><p class="gifs">






</p><p>Jake? She can’t think about him right now! Who the hell is he kidding? They’ll be in different states in a couple of months. It’s kinda sweet but no way. Jake was never meant to be a permanent fixture in her life.</p><p>Dylan moves on to the subject of their parents, conceding that maybe she was right: “Maybe do nothing. They’re adults. It’s not our problem, it’s their problem.” He sure has changed his tune fast. Unless it’s meant to be reverse psychology.</p><p class="gifs">












</p><p>Dylan goes off on some kind of romantic monologue about how she hadn’t heard their father talk about Emily, that it wasn’t some stupid fling like he had originally thought, and loving the wrong person isn’t something that someone can just talk you out of, and you can’t just fall out of love on command, even if you wanted to. She can’t believe her ears. Dylan swears that he’s not defending him, that he’s just pointing out what they’re up against, but that’s not what it sounds like to her. She reminds Dylan that he was the one who first said that the truth would break their mother.</p><p class="gifs">



</p><p>If their parents can’t do it themselves, their children will have to do it for them.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0071"><h2>71. Chapter 71</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">


</p><p>Daphne is obviously distracted over the next couple of days. She doesn’t excel at any of the exercises or class assignments, and seems only mildly annoyed that Dylan is doing better than her.</p><p class="gifs">


</p><p>Dylan’s aim originally had been to get her back to a place where she wanted to be proactive about what was going on with their parents—but this isn’t what he had in mind. She’s letting it take over. She had it buried and he uncorked it and now it’s consuming her. Daphne didn’t like unfixed issues in her well-ordered life, and when she couldn’t ignore them, she obsessed.</p><p>He does finally manage to goad her into talking things out with Jake. She probably never even meant for things to get that far with him but Jake was dogged. And Daphne had always been indecisive about men. Like she was afraid to let go of a good thing, even if it wasn’t really what she wanted.</p><p class="gifs">


</p><p>Dylan has to admit that he’s glad she cut him loose. Jake is a good guy but not a good match for Daphne.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0072"><h2>72. Chapter 72</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>For once they don’t choose to be a team and the instructor doesn’t force them together but they still end up partnered because of the case study they both independently chose. The two others on the same study inconveniently disappear—maybe ditching class, but probably just avoiding Kane sibling drama.</p><p>Daphne’s insistence that they talk about Dadgate makes Dylan think back fondly on the all-business serious young lady™ that she used to be.</p><p class="gifs">
  
</p><p>At least for an afternoon! Of course he feels the same way she does: he can’t go through another holiday like that. But she keeps bringing it up and he actually wants to work on the case study.</p><p>After changing his mind about 20 times, Dylan’s back to thinking that they need to pressure their father into doing what it’s his job to do. Daphne is either being contrary for sport (not beyond the realm of possibility) or really is arrogant enough to think she can solve the problem with the right intervention.</p><p class="gifs">


</p><p>He has a bad feeling that she doesn’t mean their mother…</p><p class="gifs">






</p><p>OK, that was sort of meant to be a joke and it did not sound like one.</p><p>And she doesn’t take it like one.</p><p>They’ve had this problem before. She doesn’t think he’s very funny.</p><p class="gifs">
  
</p><p>It’s a strange thing for him to say to her after essentially encouraging her to break up with Jake, but Dylan figures Jake was just Daphne treading water anyway, since it was obvious she was never serious about him by how emotionlessly she dropped him at the slightest prodding. And he can’t shake the impression that ending the “ceasefire” and throwing herself into their parents’ problems is all some kind of escape for her, and that she would be a lot better off if she just dealt with what was really going on. He’s just not getting that across to her very diplomatically.</p><p>He should write a case study on <em>her</em>.</p><p class="gifs">
  





</p><p>Hadn’t he just said the exact same thing to her a few days ago?</p><p>They were quite a pair.</p><p class="gifs">


</p><p>Great. They’re never going to finish the worksheet.</p><p>Their arguments have become so circular that they seem to switch positions every time they talk about it. Dylan wonders if they’re both so frustrated that they don’t know what to do that they’re just taking it out on each other, and find a little bit of relief in blaming the other for being the one who is failing their family. If they can make themselves believe it for just a second, it’s fleetingly soothing.</p><p>Dylan knows the only one they should blaming is their father, and his shitty luck that he had to go and fall in love with someone he shouldn’t have fallen in love with. But Dylan will use any excuse to tell Daphne exactly what’s wrong with her. It’s a compulsion. It’s pathological. He’s glad she cut Jake loose, and glad that he’s had the advantage this week as a trainee—he’s not sure why he’s giving her such a hard time about not living her life.</p><p>He probably owes her yet another apology but she’ll have to wait for a time when he’s better disposed towards her.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0073"><h2>73. Chapter 73</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The investigator Dylan had hired to confirm that their father was having an affair had provided more than enough information to track Emily down and arrange a meeting. He’s not sure why Emily agrees to it. Maybe she is impatient for something to change as well.</p><p>Dylan would have given anything not to be there, but he can’t let Daphne go on her own, even if he doesn’t agree with what she is doing.</p><p class="gifs">












</p><p>Daphne is terrifying.</p><p>He doesn’t apologize to Emily before chasing after Daphne, but he does tell her that his sister sees the world in a particular way.</p><p>Daphne is less than thrilled with Dylan’s contribution to the evening’s mission.</p><p class="gifs">



</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0074"><h2>74. Chapter 74</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Daphne got a strongly-worded phone call from her father the following day, in which he mostly talked at her, and made it very clear that his relationship with Emily was none of her business.</p><p class="gifs">









</p><p>Dylan has flip-flopped on the subject again—surprise, surprise. God, he was infuriating. He doesn’t want their mom to find out, but goes crazy on Daphne when she does nothing. He wants her to have a plan until she has one, then he doesn’t support it. He wants her invested, then he calls her obsessed. She’s doing everything she can to protect their mom, and all Dylan can do is criticize her. Now he’s back to thinking their dad should be the one to out the truth, but Daphne’s not sure she can wait any longer for him to do it. Christmas is only a few weeks away and it can’t be a repeat of Thanksgiving. Daphne can’t suffer through that again.</p><p>Maybe it’s Daphne’s turn to flip-flop.</p><p class="gifs">
  


</p><p>The agreement is a milestone, but it doesn’t exactly solve the problem of when or how (or who) to tell her.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0075"><h2>75. Chapter 75</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">





</p>
<hr/><p>Iris is relentless. And oblivious. If Dylan had been interested in her, he would have asked her out the first day. He doesn’t play hard-to-get.</p><p>Still, Daphne’s a little worried she might wear him down: she’s all wrong for him. And unlike most of the other girls, she seems interested in something more serious.</p><p class="gifs">


</p>
<hr/><p>Iris doesn’t like Daphne too much, even though they had been friendly at the start of term. Daphne supposes that Iris thinks she keeps cockblocking her.</p><p class="gifs">






</p><p>Iris might not be entirely wrong about that.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0076"><h2>76. Chapter 76</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">




</p><p>She isn’t sure if she likes where this might be headed. Is he volunteering? That doesn’t seem likely.</p><p class="gifs">




</p><p>He says he thought she would approve because it pitted them against each other, which is almost certainly a gibe about her decision to go back to working alone.</p><p class="gifs">


</p><p>Dylan could change his clothes or his hair but she didn’t think he was capable of being anything other than so very much himself.</p><p class="gifs">


</p><p>Their mother would certainly not approve. Despite the fact that she had always tried to foster achievement and healthy competition between the siblings, she had specifically forbidden wagers after an unfortunate pancake eating contest when they were in elementary school. The prize had been three days without chores while the loser did them, and in retrospect, it had definitely not been worth it.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0077"><h2>77. Chapter 77</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">




</p><p>His undercover assignment is going really well until Daphne shows up. It’s not supposed to be a spectator sport, and it looks like she’s there to do more than just watch from the sidelines.</p><p>The wager had seemed like a fair way to decide who should tell their mother about the affair—after all, there was no reason for both of them to suffer—but he should have realized that Daphne would be so eager to squirm her way out of it that she would abandon all of her integrity.</p><p class="gifs">












</p><p>That is such bullshit. He tries to borrow one assignment from her laptop and all of the sudden he’s branded a veteran cheater for life.</p><p class="gifs">





</p><p>He thought he was heading her off—whatever her plan to compromise his assignment had been—but they get spotted and the conversation with her is enough to get him marked down for breaking character. He doesn’t fail, but it certainly gives Daphne the advantage in their bet.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0078"><h2>78. Chapter 78</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">









</p><p>Daphne is gratified to learn that “those kinds of insults” had at least been effective at one point in time. Dylan always gives the appearance of letting personal attacks slide right off his back. Then again, the thought of him acting like everything was fine and then running off to his room to brood because of something she had said makes her a little sad. Where is he hiding all those insecurities? They certainly don’t show. He’s right: he does have it going on.</p><p>She would like to think that if she had known she had had that kind of power to hurt him, she wouldn’t have used it. But she does strange things when he gets her all riled up. She doesn’t always make her best decisions when she’s angry with him. It’s exactly why she hadn’t wanted to train at Quantico with him.</p><p>He chases those sympathetic thoughts from her mind by mentioning her undercover examination that was coming that evening and suggesting that she should be concerned.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0079"><h2>79. Chapter 79</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  






</p><p>She couldn’t honestly be surprised to see him, could she? He wasn’t technically supposed to know where the exercise was going down but it wasn’t that hard to find out. That’s the kind of thing they were being trained to do, after all, wasn’t it?</p><p class="gifs">
  








</p><p>The primary goal of the undercover test was to not raise the suspicions of the people you were trying to deceive. Daphne had done that simply by following him to his location at the bank. He had something a little more potent in mind for her test at the Dystex convention at the Raddington hotel. The way he saw it, she had broken faith first. After that, escalation was his right.</p><p class="gifs">
  







</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0080"><h2>80. Chapter 80</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  

























</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0081"><h2>81. Chapter 81</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">













</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0082"><h2>82. Chapter 82</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Daphne had gone to the bathroom to fix herself up, with vague ideas of rejoining the training exercise and somehow collecting herself enough to get through it. But Dylan had been waiting outside and when he held up a room key card she couldn’t get into the elevator with him fast enough. The ride up was awkward; they couldn’t look at each other. She cleaned under her nails, he read the safety information. Once they were inside the room it went a lot smoother…</p><p>It was Friday night—so Daphne wasn’t worried about being missed. Several others had said they weren’t returning to campus that night. She felt a little concerned about returning to campus side-by-side with Dylan the next morning—not that anyone would have realistically been suspicious—but it turns out she needn’t have been: she woke up alone.</p><p class="gifs">



</p><p>He’s a ghost all day, and then finally comes by her room that evening.</p><p class="gifs">












</p><p>She doesn’t make any excuses to him for why it might have happened—stress, or loneliness, or whatever. She makes them to herself and they seem inadequate and unconvincing. They would sound even worse out loud. She assumes he’s making his own rationalizations, and the less they talk about it, the better.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0083"><h2>83. Chapter 83</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">














</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0084"><h2>84. Chapter 84</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">








</p><p>Their father makes a visit to Quantico that week as an enrichment speaker. Dylan doesn’t feel particularly privileged or enriched by his presence. But once his business and Dylan’s classes are done, he comes and finds his son with some good news for once.</p><p class="gifs">



</p><p>It seems too good to be true. Dylan hasn’t given a single thought to speaking to his mother since…what had happened had happened. (Technically Daphne had lost the bet…but he wasn’t going to hold her to it.) Now here his father is, finally ready to fix everything.</p><p class="gifs">


</p><p>As if it had been a foregone conclusion all along!</p><p class="gifs">
  
</p><p>But as annoyed as Dylan is, he feels more comforted than anything, like it had all just been a bad nightmare and the ship—well, this ship anyway—was righting itself.</p><p class="gifs">
  
</p><p>His dad wants to know where Daphne is. But she and Dylan have avoided being in the same room as much as possible.</p><p class="gifs">


</p><p>Not exactly…</p><p>Though Daphne had got off scot-free when their father had overheard her decidedly-aggressive rant earlier in the term, he targets Dylan tonight for one of his infamous importance-of-family lectures, subtitled “There Are No Women Like Kane Women.” It’s pretty rich coming from a man who until this week didn’t even have the balls to decide whether he was leaving his <em>Kane</em> wife for his mistress or not, but Dylan is so relieved to hear his father extolling his mother’s virtues and so uncomfortably aware of the awkward relevance of the topic that he doesn’t talk back.</p><p>His father is drawing some kind of alarming parallel between his marital troubles and Dylan and Daphne’s recurrent bickering and it’s making Dylan squirm, though his father doesn’t seem to notice. Dylan, who is used to his parents’ favoritism, ought to be offended that he is now expected to “honor” Daphne simply because she is “rare” and “fine” (his father’s seldom-exhibited love of poetry is rearing its head), but the idea doesn’t really seem so crazy…</p><p>Does replaying the other night over and over again count as honoring?</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0085"><h2>85. Chapter 85</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  




















</p><p>Right. No more secrets.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0086"><h2>86. Chapter 86</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">



</p><p>He’s amused by her little act of finding whatever is on her computer screen to be the most interesting thing in the entire world. She obviously doesn’t want to talk to him—she had already hijacked the conversation to make sure it was about their parents and not anything more…unsettling.</p><p class="gifs">

</p><p>He should probably leave, and stop staring at her… Clearly she won’t be entering into a serious discussion today.</p><p class="gifs">


</p><p>So she really is going to just pretend like it never happened.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0087"><h2>87. Chapter 87</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Time for a more direct approach, perhaps. Everyone is at lunch, it’s the perfect time.</p><p class="gifs">


</p><p>He doesn’t build up to it—he’s too worried she’ll find a way to block him if he doesn’t just get it out as fast as he can.</p><p class="gifs">








</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0088"><h2>88. Chapter 88</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Daphne gets a text from Alex, her omni-absent roommate, around 11pm: “I need help with your brother!” She gets a second text right after with the address—an apartment in town that she eventually finds out belongs to Alex’s boyfriend. (Which explains why Alex was never around except during classes.) But despite Daphne’s frantic attempts at getting more information, Alex is silent after that. She arrives in a panic, only to learn that Dylan had jogged over there—without his phone or his wallet—to hang out, gotten too drunk to walk such a long distance back to campus (according to Alex, not according to him), and stayed too long to get a ride back from anyone else at the small, informal gathering that Daphne apparently had not been invited to. She could strangle Alex for making her think something more serious had been wrong. Daphne had seen Dylan leave for the jog—her reeling mind had wondered if he had been hit by a car or mugged or God only knows what else.</p><p>She could slap Dylan upside the head for being such an idiot. (She can’t believe he would risk going off campus during the week again.)</p><p>But she is more relieved than anything.</p><p class="gifs">





</p><p>She can’t resist hugging him (even in front of Alex)—she had been really worried. He’s embarrassed, of course, and insistent that he would have been just fine, and annoyed with Alex for being overly cautious.</p><p class="gifs">



</p><p>Dylan falls back asleep while Alex consults Daphne on a homework assignment, and Daphne forgoes telling her that she would have had an easier time of if she had stuck around campus for the study group, and she forgoes asking why Dylan had really stayed so late after everyone else had left, since the boyfriend was nowhere in sight. Alex had always been flirty with Dylan and they seemed to still be on fine terms so whatever had happened, Daphne didn’t think Dylan had been rejected.</p><p class="gifs">







</p><p>Alex doesn’t seem to be hinting at anything…awkward, but given some of the things that she has witnessed, Daphne is a little concerned.</p><p class="gifs">

</p><p>After she finishes helping Alex, Daphne slaps Dylan around a little until he’s awake enough to make it down to the car. He’s really not <em>that</em> drunk, but she’s glad Alex didn’t let him jog all the way back to the dorms in the dark. She has no right to ask him if he was there to hook up with Alex, but he intuitively volunteers the information mid-way through the drive back to campus, assuring her that he wasn’t. And she feels deeply relieved for the second time that night.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0089"><h2>89. Chapter 89</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">



</p><p>She shouldn’t have asked that, and he doesn’t say the first thing that crosses his mind.</p><p class="gifs">

</p><p>Gummy worms had been her favorite candy when they were kids. She never shared; he always had to steal them when she wasn’t looking. She probably hadn’t had any in 15 years.</p><p class="gifs">







</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0090"><h2>90. Chapter 90</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">


</p><p>Daphne is really trying not to think about…<em>That Thing That Happened</em>, but Dylan isn’t making it very easy on her.</p><p class="gifs">




</p><p>Thank God Alex wasn’t around to see <em>that</em>.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0091"><h2>91. Chapter 91</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">


</p><p>She’s still cheerful and lighthearted about their father’s decision, and breezy and easy because they’re in public. It’s a far cry from the skittish, reserved person she has been the few times Dylan has tried to speak to her in private. It’s almost reassuring that she considers it dangerous to be alone with him. Is she worried about what he’ll do or say? Or afraid of what she will?</p><p>She has broken the protocol of the activity to come speak to him—she doesn’t have to be afraid of what will happen if their entire class is watching.</p><p class="gifs">





</p><p>Criticism, sarcasm…it’s almost like they’ve gone back to before the hotel. He doesn’t like that she’s trying to act normal. The last thing he wants to do is pretend like things are normal.</p><p class="gifs">

</p><p>Dylan might be on his phone but she’s not going to spot their suspect while talking to him.</p><p class="gifs">



</p>
<hr/><p>She’s beginning to feel discouraged by his lack of engagement in the conversation, and then realizes she’s now on the receiving end of what she has been giving out all week. But she’s not really sure what hashing it all out is going to solve. It would be counterproductive to forgetting, and putting it behind them <em>had</em> to be the objective.</p><p>That objective was supposed to be getting closer, easier. It seemed to be getting harder instead.</p><p class="gifs">




</p><p>She doesn’t say that she has been thinking about it “a lot”. She keeps the “a lot” to herself—a tiny little fence around her vulnerability. Given the vast inappropriateness of it having happened in the first place, she’s not entirely sure exactly how much it would be appropriate for her be thinking about it. However that is quantified, and whatever the quantity is, she’s certain she thinks about it more than that. And that’s a confession she’s not ready to make.</p><p>She’s not ready to say, “I think about it all the time”, or “I think about it too much”… or “It’s all I think about.”</p><p class="gifs">

</p><p>Unsettled…The word seems inadequate, and maybe a little optimistic. (Can it ever be <em>settled</em>?) But Daphne understands exactly what he means when he says it. It’s the same thing she feels—like it’s all still up in the air. Like it’s not over yet, and part of them is still there in that room.</p><p class="gifs">

</p><p>He’s not sure if she’s flirting or making light of the situation. Or just deflecting from any actual, concrete discussion. He’s definitely not ready to joke about it.</p><p class="gifs">

</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0092"><h2>92. Chapter 92</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">



</p>
<hr/><p>It doesn’t take Will long to realize that Dylan isn’t himself.</p><p class="gifs">





</p><p>Dylan wouldn’t trust the discretion of a mute priest, not with this kind of girl trouble.</p><p class="gifs">


</p><p>Will will make a great FBI agent—he loves asking questions.</p><p>It really was nice that someone actually gave a shit, but... He couldn't exactly unburden himself, could he?</p><p class="gifs">



</p><p>Wow, thank God Will was here to advise him! Talk to her about it? Genius.</p><p class="gifs">






</p><p>Wait…Could Will actually be onto something…? He’s probably imagining a candlelight dinner or an afternoon at the aquarium. That won’t work, not for him and Daphne. Sure, they could find privacy for a talk, when Alex was at her boyfriend’s or Will was at the library, or they could take a drive through the country or go to their parents’ for the weekend. But what Dylan really needs to do is get Daphne’s mind away from familiar people and familiar surroundings. Some place where she can truly relax…</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0093"><h2>93. Chapter 93</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
















</p><p>There’s no point in him pretending like he isn’t hoping for round 2. But if all they do is talk, that’s good enough for him. He just needs to do something.</p><p>There’s a long silence, and he’s not sure whether to interrupt her thinking or not—he can’t tell which way she’s leaning. But overall the conversation is going a lot better than he feared it would. At least she’s open to it. She could have shut him down the second he made the suggestion. He could still hear her imagined “No way in hell” echoing around in his head.</p><p>He finally prompts her.</p><p class="gifs">









</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0094"><h2>94. Chapter 94</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">

</p><p>She’s panicking a little, and keeps needling him about the uncertainty of their trip.</p><p>He’s right, of course. About that itch. She has it too. She might even have it worse than him. It’s not fair for her to be acting so accusatory—like he’s dragging her off to “settle” his lust and just pretending like it might only be a opportunity to talk in order to trick her. That’s not how she sees it, it’s just her defense. The truth is, she trusts Dylan. Completely. Maybe not to watch her plate of French fries, but with something big like this, absolutely. And if anyone needs a good settling, it’s her.</p><p class="gifs">





</p><p>He’s so proud of the thought he has put into it. Everyone will assume they went to their parents’ house for the weekend—they had done that several times already in the term. And if anyone finds out they were never there, well, they didn’t technically lie: they did go to DC—to the airport. And for all they know, everyone calls Day Creek "DC". If somehow someone, including their parents, or Dylan’s very inquisitive roommate Will, finds out they went together to Canada, then they would say they went to a mutual friend’s wedding. They give her a name—Brenda—and a minimal background.</p><p>She’s impressed: he’s got his bases covered.</p><p>She’s also deeply ashamed to be involved in such a plot.</p><p class="gifs">










</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0095"><h2>95. Chapter 95</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  









</p><p>The bus ride wasn’t terribly long, but long enough that Daphne stops looking around her like she was on the lam and Dylan stops messing with her.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0096"><h2>96. Chapter 96</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  





</p><p>He had explained that before: a town of moderate size that no one would want to visit but no one would avoid. Utterly unremarkable. Perhaps that was excessively cautious, but at least he was taking it seriously. Maybe all the considerations were for her sake. But now she wonders if he picked the world’s most boring icicle of a town just to keep them in the room…</p><p class="gifs">
  





</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0097"><h2>97. Chapter 97</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  








</p><p>So cute…</p><p>Are these thoughts really in her head? Sure, Dylan had always been objectively good-looking. She could recognize that, and not only in the reactions of the women around her. But…when did she become so <em>un</em>-objective about those good looks? When did they stop becoming a fact about who Dylan was and start becoming something that was smoldering and percolating inside of her?</p><p>He was right about this trip. Thank God they weren’t back at Quantico.</p><p class="gifs">
  





</p><p>It’s easy, when they go back up. So easy.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0098"><h2>98. Chapter 98</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">


















</p><p>Dylan had requested a room with two queen-sized beds rather than one king. Daphne thought it was very respectful of him, but he teased her and told her it was so that she could spread out all of her clothes like she always did and they wouldn’t be in his way. It was obvious he had traveled with her before. But his horse wasn’t that high: she couldn’t count the number of times on vacations that he had thrown her drying swimsuit out of the bathroom and onto the floor because he wanted to use the shower.</p><p>They both had known the second bed would never be slept in, even if they had still been dancing around outright admitting it in frank conversation ever since the trip had first been proposed. Daphne had felt—for whatever reason—that the pretense of a possibly-chaste weekend was less depraved than the more-honest alternative, no matter how hollow and unlikely it was. Only a small sliver of her had ever thought they would only “talk”. But she sweat out most of her shame during the run, shed it like dead skin. At least in this place she could feel a little more free.</p><p>Unimpressed with the accommodations, and uneasy that Dylan had called her his sister in the bar the night before, Daphne found a bed &amp; breakfast right outside of town and they checked out and moved there for their second night.</p><p class="gifs">
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0099"><h2>99. Chapter 99</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They eat dinner Saturday night at some kind of grill pub with a cozy north-of-the-border vibe. She’s ready to go back to the B&amp;B as soon as they’re done eating, but Dylan makes friends like he always does</p><p class="gifs">

</p><p>and somehow he gets her to spend a few hours there—dancing,</p><p class="gifs">



</p><p class="gifs">



</p><p>playing pool,</p><p class="gifs">

</p><p>singing karaoke, drinking,</p><p class="gifs">

</p><p>paying way too much to hear their favorite songs on the jukebox, and just generally having more fun than she has had in years.</p><p>She’s stiff and nervous at first when Dylan puts his arm around her waist in front of these strangers,</p><p class="gifs">


</p><p>but 45 minutes and a few shots in, and she’s hanging all over him.</p><p class="gifs">



</p><p>It’s unlike her to be so careless with a secret, but even more unlike her to be like this with a…lover.</p><p class="gifs">


</p><p>Lover? She can’t call him that, or think of him that way. The word makes her skin crawl it’s so archaic and melodramatic, but worse than that it’s so inadequate, because he’s so much more than that. Whatever is going on… it’s transcending labels and the capacity of the English language to describe it.</p><p>She would never have initiated this kind of PDA, but once he started it… They both just slipped right into this game, this pretend. They’re pretending with each other as much as the locals in the bar, because they still haven’t talked about what happened, what’s happening, or what will happen.</p><p>But they’re having fun. They played some kind of sports trivia drinking game that got even Dylan into trouble because he doesn’t follow hockey.</p><p class="gifs">



</p><p>He doesn’t follow hockey at all.</p><p>She can’t even remember most of what was talked about… she was too distracted by thoughts of going home.</p><p>Their flight was around lunchtime the following day—so early. What a waste of a day.</p><p class="gifs">

</p><p>Maybe that’s the reason they stay so long at the pub… to avoid any kind of conversation about that tomorrow, what it meant and what it would bring.</p><p class="gifs">




</p><p>Everyone thinks they are this adorable couple. Daphne can only blush and avoid the comments and hopefully any further personal questions by turning her attention to her drink or bringing up politics.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0100"><h2>100. Chapter 100</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">



</p><p>They had given fake names at the pub and paid with cash. It felt a little weird to be caught obviously post-coital by someone in a place that had Dylan’s credit card information on file. They didn’t expect anyone else to be up yet: they had to be up early to make the bus back to the airport and had just come down to grab some continental breakfast for the road.</p><p class="gifs">



</p><p>Daphne looks around at the B&amp;B while she waits. It’s not a special place—it’s like any other—but it’s burned into her brain. When she is in her silver years, confined to a wheelchair or a hospital bed, is this what she will look back on? Her weekend in Day Creek of all places, with Dylan of all people?</p><p class="gifs">






</p><p>It was fun. They could have fun together—a lot of it. Who knew? Who knew they could click like this, if they just let go of all the bullshit. Or maybe it’s just him. Maybe he’s fun, and she should have been enjoying that all along instead of resenting him for it.</p><p>It was more than fun. But he deserves credit for saying something, even if it’s inadequate, even if this obviously isn’t going to be The Conversation.</p><p class="gifs">





</p><p>It’s all weird, she thinks. It might even be weirder than their first conversation after that first time at the hotel.</p><p>So much for resolution. If anything, they’re worse off…</p><p class="gifs">






</p>
<hr/><p>They stayed up late. Almost all night, really. But still, she doesn’t sleep on the bus or the plane, though Dylan does.</p><p>There had been a certain finality to turning in their room key, as if they were stepping out of a sanctuary to which they could never return. But driving back to Quantico from the airport in Daphne’s car, they are alone again. Absentmindedly, she notes places along the way where they could pull off the road and probably never see another soul for hours on end—parking lots belonging to abandoned businesses, side streets for farms, driveways of properties for sale. She shouldn’t be doing that. She shouldn’t be thinking about where they could go, some other day. The Next Time.</p><p>They have an unspoken conversation about the spoken conversation they never had. Supposedly, they had gone on the trip, at least in part, to talk. They hadn’t talked. They hadn’t talked at all, they hadn’t even approached it widely or obliquely, they hadn’t even talked about talking.</p><p>The only thing that had even come close to talking was when Daphne asked him, while they were lying in bed, if he had ever wanted to kiss her before Quantico. Dylan begrudgingly fessed up to a time in high school after she had “kicked ass” at a debate in front of the entire school when he thought she had “looked flushed and excited and very kissable”, though he didn’t admit to actually wanting to kiss her. Daphne remembered the debate, of course. It was hard to imagine Dylan in the stands watching her with admiration and it made her stomach do flips. He didn’t ask her the same question—he probably assumed her answer was “no” but didn’t want to hear her say it. She told him anyway, about another time in high school—the homecoming dance her senior year. Daphne had been asked to go by a guy she liked but wasn’t particularly passionate about. Dylan strolled in with his date, looking so good in his formal wear, so confident and fun-loving. She had wished, not that she was there with Dylan, but that she was there with someone just like him. In retrospect, it was a bit of a red flag.</p><p>It was heavy in the air that this was their last chance to talk before they were back among their peers and their trip was truly over.</p><p>But Dylan clears this throat and then reclines his seat and pretends to fall asleep again. And she’s relieved. Because she still doesn’t know what to say.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0101"><h2>101. Chapter 101</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">







</p><p>So his total dejection is evident on his face, then?</p><p>Dylan had been fully committed to the purging theory, that whatever had risen up between him and Daphne could be put to rest again if they just had enough time and freedom. They had been rushed and restrained so far—by fear, surroundings, other people. They needed to be able to follow all the way through, and find that closure at the end. Maybe it couldn’t be purged, exactly—but it would simmer down, once there was no more curiosity, once it no longer held anything left to be discovered and explored. He had <em>ached</em> to touch all the places he hadn’t touched in that one night, to know everything about her that was forbidden to him. </p><p>In a way, it seemed like common sense: if you eat pizza for every meal all weekend long—even different types, from different pizzerias—no matter how frickin’ delicious the pizza is, by the time Monday rolls around you would rather eat something else. Well, whatever feelings he had for Daphne didn’t seem to work that way, and he had known deep down all along that the theory was bullshit, but he was just so hungry for her again that he refused the smart move, which was to put what had happened behind him and forget all about it.</p><p>Now his comforting theory that he had naively clung to out of desperation is dust and ashes behind him, and the experience of that freedom together has only whetted his appetite for more of the same. You don’t just have the time of your life and then be ready for an entire life of it never happening again.</p><p>He has to get over her. And it looks like there’s not going to be any shortcut.</p><p class="gifs">



</p><p>Oh shit.</p>
<hr/><p class="gifs">

</p><p>Daphne tries to pick up a textbook, and reads the same paragraph over and over again without remembering a word of it. She finally decides that sitting on her bed and staring into nothing would be a more effective use of her time. </p><p>Going on that trip was a really bad idea.</p><p class="gifs">

</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0102"><h2>102. Chapter 102</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">





</p><p>It’s way too early for this. </p><p class="gifs">





</p><p>
  <em>We already have a family together. That’s the problem.</em>
</p><p>Dylan had felt the floor drop out from underneath him when Will guessed about him and Daphne, but he needn’t have been worried: for whatever reason, Will desperately wants to be his friend, and not only does he not seem to care about Dylan’s incestuous feelings for his sister, he is apparently actively encouraging them. Or something.</p><p>Dylan hadn’t bothered to deny the truth—Will had seemed all but certain. It made Dylan wonder what the other trainees had noticed about him and Daphne. Did they all secretly suspect something? </p><p>Dylan hadn’t told Will much, he certainly hadn’t told him anything that should have given him the impression that he and Daphne were in the middle of planning a family. (If Will had judged Dylan’s mood correctly, he would have realized that things were looking down, not up.) Perhaps Dylan ought to be a little creeped out by Will’s fascination and enthusiasm (though part of that is probably just his love of facts), but he’s got such a puppy vibe about him <em>(and absolutely no sense that he’s overstepping his bounds)</em> that Dylan really doesn’t mind as long as he can keep his mouth shut around everyone else.</p><p class="gifs">


</p><p>Where did he even get that book from?</p><p class="gifs">

</p><p>It’s too late for Dylan to act casual about this in front of Will—Will has already seen that it’s slowly splitting him open—but he finds himself trying for it anyway. It’s just in his nature.</p><p>Dylan does find the information reassuring, he supposes—but it didn’t really matter: he and Daphne were never going to be able to be together, let alone have their own children. And if you had asked him a couple of weeks ago, he would have told you he was a decade away from settling down anyway.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0103"><h2>103. Chapter 103</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dylan pulls Daphne aside in class and tells her that Will knows. He tries to allay her worries—Will’s no threat—but she blames him for not being more discreet and doesn’t trust that Will can keep quiet about it.</p><p>Though she barely has chance enough to say that much before getting as far away from him as she can.</p><p class="gifs">

</p><p>Dylan supposes that he and Will are friends already. Will’s not the sort of person he would normally have ended up being friends with (different interests, different habits, different everything…) but assigned housing had that kind of effect, and for such a strange little dude he was OK. When Dylan first met him, he had wondered how Will had gotten in to the program—given how inept he was socially—but Will was insanely good with computers (and genetics, apparently). It would have been a more expected path for him to become an analyst, but he wanted to be an agent and Dylan really had to admire that. He could do it.</p><p class="gifs">


</p><p>He was a bit much sometimes, though.</p><p>Maybe Daphne is right to be concerned…</p><p class="gifs">




</p><p>Interpol?</p><p>Dylan is quickly learning that Will is a compulsive problem-solver.</p><p class="gifs">

</p><p>When it came down to it, the illegality of incest wasn’t really the issue.</p><p>Though it didn’t help.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0104"><h2>104. Chapter 104</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">

</p><p>Back to normal, but not really.</p><p class="gifs">


</p><p>Dylan didn’t realize how many different ways he and his sister could be uneasy with each other. It was a whole spectrum. Vulnerability, resentment, shame, uncertainty. Uneasy because they’re fighting. Uneasy because they’re not fighting. Uneasy because their fighting turned to wild, wanton sex. Uneasy because they want it to happen again. And now, whatever the hell this is.</p><p>They might have a normal, but they’ve never had an easiness.</p><p class="gifs">

</p><p>It would be simpler if he could avoid her, but there she is, in class, every single day. Right cross the hall in the dormitories. At the next table in the cafeteria, or at his.</p><p class="gifs">

</p><p>They’re not really avoiding each other, they don’t want to. He thought she might…But she sits down next to him in class, sometimes.</p><p class="gifs">

</p><p>Or they might team up during an exercise. Sometimes. Almost with a calculated attempt at randomness, at being casual. Trying to find that place, that amount in the middle between all the time and never that isn’t weird.</p><p class="gifs">


</p><p>But it is weird, of course.</p><p>And Will is there to see all of it.</p><p class="gifs">



</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0105"><h2>105. Chapter 105</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">

</p><p>It’s physical day. They can’t be commissioned as agents unless they’re fit to serve.</p><p class="gifs">








</p><p>He <em>is</em> happy for her. He’s just not so sure that he’s happy for himself.</p><p class="gifs">






</p><p>Daphne will want DC or New York. That’s not where he had planned to go—he had always wanted Honolulu or San Diego, somewhere he could surf . He didn’t know how to surf yet, but he had been planning on learning and on liking it. Planning on the sunset over the ocean while he cracked open a cold one.</p><p>He might enjoy the high-octane options of DC and New York. And being close to family, of course…</p><p>But there were limited openings, especially at those two locations. If there was only one spot, which there might very well be, he wanted Daphne to have it. But where did that leave him? That beach seemed pretty lonely all of the sudden.</p>
<hr/><p class="gifs">



</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0106"><h2>106. Chapter 106</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">







</p><p>Shit, she should not be doing this. This is exactly how Dylan got into trouble with his roommate.</p><p class="gifs">
  

</p><p>Alex seems both impressed and thrilled that they have something fun to talk about.</p><p class="gifs">
  

</p><p>We might have shared a nursery…</p><p class="gifs">
  
</p><p>It’s not lost on her that calling it “something” even though it didn’t amount to more than a couple of weeks—and more accurately one day and three nights—is ridiculous. But she can’t deny—as hard as it is to face the fact—that it has been the most intense romantic relationship of her life. It’s also not as if she just met Dylan. Their history—their extremely long history, even if it wasn’t as a couple—counts for something.</p><p>Daphne is starting to panic that somehow Alex is going to know who she means, so she lies.</p><p class="gifs">
  
</p><p>There, that will put her off the scent for good, and hopefully do some damage control about anything Alex might have noticed in the past.

</p><p class="gifs">





</p><p>Daphne is talking to the wrong person. Alex doesn’t believe any guy is off-limits—before she met her boyfriend she had slept with one of the instructors.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0107"><h2>107. Chapter 107</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  
</p><p>Apparently Dylan got the idea for their friend-getting-married-in-Canada lie from the fact that a friend of his was really was getting married a couple of weekends later. (Though Richmond wasn’t exactly Canada, and knowing he had friends from high school who had moved there made her all the more glad they had traveled so much further.) Two friend weddings in such a short period of time seemed like a bit of a stretch to Daphne, but Dylan assured her that being a December bride was “all the rage now”. This other friend getting married—the real one that is, not “Brenda”—is actually an amicable <em>ex</em>, named Julia, who Daphne had never liked even though she had always been nice and now Daphne suddenly understands why…</p><p>Dylan had told his sister he would attend the event solo—after all, it would be full of his high school friends—but he shows up unexpectedly at Daphne’s door 30 minutes after he was supposed to have already left and he looks like he needs something.</p><p class="gifs">
  







</p><p>Daphne sees it. God, it’s just like that story she told him about homecoming. She really has a thing for him in black tie.</p><p class="gifs">
  






</p><p>She studies Natalie and Alex’s reactions, and they don’t seem to think it’s weird, even though Daphne herself feels like she’s being asked out on a date. They even seem a little jealous, like they would rather be the one to go. Daphne agrees, before one of them jumps in and volunteers.</p><p class="gifs">
  
</p><p>Halfway to the wedding it occurs to Daphne to wonder if Alex thinks she’s in love with the groom…The event is poorly timed with the lie she had just told to her.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0108"><h2>108. Chapter 108</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">


</p><p>Despite Will’s recent discourse on incest and nuptial law, the idea of a wedding being an odd place to take Daphne doesn’t strike him until the ceremony, when Julia starts walking down the aisle to Canon in D among a sea of smiling onlookers, and he remembers that a wedding isn’t just a reunion and a party, it’s also a deeply emotional celebration of (legal) romantic love.</p><p>He looks over at Daphne in the church and she seems uncomfortable, but that doesn’t tell him much since Daphne would likely be uncomfortable at a social event no matter what. Maybe it’s presumptuous of him to even be worrying that she might be thinking about their relationship—after all, they weren’t even together, let alone a serious, committed couple who would be thinking about a step like this. One couldn’t even rightly call what happened between them an affair. He’s not sure himself how or why he thinks of it with the magnitude that he does when just a few weeks ago they were a regular brother and sister. (Maybe not exactly regular…) But he doesn’t really see their “affair” as having a beginning—it reaches back long before that night at the hotel—and he doesn’t really see it as having ended either, not while he still feels this way. Even if nothing ever happens after this, it’s not over yet.</p><p>The fancy wedding reception is a little tense thanks to her mood, but fine. His old friends come by their table, surprised to see that Dylan’s plus one is not only family, but the sister he had never gotten along with. He’s careful to include her in all the conversations, and Dylan brags to all of them that Daphne has a law degree and is now at Quantico. They’re not as impressed as they might have been, but they were all familiar with her high school work ethic: it’s not exactly astounding that she would have accomplished something remarkable. But they congratulate her dutifully and slap him on the back for being on track to be FBI too. They joke about old teachers and Daphne even laughs a few times.</p><p>The drive back is an hour long but it felt like three. Daphne said very little <em>(citing a need to concentrate on the road)</em> despite Dylan’s multiple attempts to engage her in conversation on a variety of benign subjects, and as soon as they parked back on campus she dashed off.</p><p>He gives her some time and then goes to find out what’s going on. The campus is dead, everyone is out or asleep. It’s getting near Christmas and there are parties around town almost every night. Dylan almost wishes there were a few people left to see him in his tux before he takes it off.</p><p class="gifs">














</p><p>She doesn’t believe him, that he just wasn’t thinking. Even though it must have been the same for her when she agreed to go with him. Or maybe she’s just back to reflexively blaming him when things go wrong. But she’s not mad at him, not really. Just frustrated. And that should be a relief, but he doesn’t like the way this conversation is trending.</p><p>She’s right, though: it <em>was</em> hard. Hard to be around her in public (…or at all), hard to watch something they could never have. The reception reminded him so much of being out at that pub in Canada, except then they were together and happy; and now it was strained between them, and they couldn’t even get up to dance with each other because half the room knew they were siblings and would think it was weird. (And it would be weird.)</p><p class="gifs">






</p><p><em>…but I knew better,</em> she leaves unsaid. She wanted to go, but she wouldn’t have, if he hadn’t pushed for it.</p><p class="gifs">










</p><p>She’s scared like she was when she took the entrance exams for the first time and choked. She’s overthinking it, just like she did then. Because it’s real, and it’s big. This is what she does.</p><p class="gifs">










</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0109"><h2>109. Chapter 109</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">

</p><p>After their conversation the night before this is likely the last thing he expects to wake up to. Even if they <em>hadn’t</em> had that conversation the night before this still likely would have been the last thing he would have expected to wake up to…</p><p>It’ll probably seem like a hilariously-sudden turn-around. Changing her mind overnight and all that. But it doesn’t feel sudden to her: she barely slept. So much thinking. She can’t think anymore.</p><p class="gifs">



</p><p>It wasn’t as risky as he’s making it sound. Everyone sleeps late on Sunday morning, and all she had to do was cross the hall. Alex is at her boyfriend’s, and Will knows. But still…</p><p class="gifs">






</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0110"><h2>110. Chapter 110</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  

</p><p>Daphne finds it liberating to give in and she’s insatiable. Dylan had always wondered if there was some kind of sexy wildcat under her marble exterior—now he knows.</p><p class="gifs">
  

</p><p>It’s verging on reckless, but that’s not what he’s concerned about. As exhilarating as it is—and as much as he’s enjoying himself—isn’t this all just another weekend in Canada? She’s not thinking of it as a relationship, she’s thinking of it as discrete events—slip ups, mistakes, cheat days. Falling off the wagon. A bender. She gives in, and gives in again. And again and again, but it’s still giving in to her.</p><p class="gifs">
  

</p><p>That’s fine, for now. He’ll take what he can get. But they’re not going to be at Quantico forever.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0111"><h2>111. Chapter 111</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  
</p><p>He hasn’t really been sure whether Daphne is changing or whether it’s only the way he sees her that has changed. But she skipped class and now he knows for sure that she’s not the same person she was when the term started. He ducks out too, as soon as they split up into small groups and no one will notice him leave, and finds her finishing some homework that had played second fiddle to their affair. He really shouldn’t be distracting her again from it—but it seems like a good opportunity to get her talking about the future.</p><p class="gifs">
  







</p><p>The more things change the more things stay the same: she might be skipping class but she’s just as prone to denial as ever. </p><p class="gifs">
  
</p><p>There’s Christmas at home with their parents, there’s the end of term and field office assignments, there’s the rest of their lives…</p><p>They haven’t even properly said what they’re feeling, or tried to figure out why they’re feeling it. They put it off in during their weekend away and they’re still putting it off.</p><p class="gifs">
  




</p><p>Oh well. They can talk later. Plenty of time to talk later…</p>
<hr/><p>As much as Daphne has been on his mind, and as much as Dylan has pressed his sister for <em>her</em> thoughts, Dylan hasn’t exactly articulated to himself where he wants this thing to go. He just keeps chasing the vague idea of “more”. He had been, prior to this latest mad phase, so busy focusing on Daphne as the impediment to his immediate happiness—the figure standing rigidly apart from him, with a mantra of “impossible” on her lips. Now that he has her—at least as far as their series of “moments of weakness” might be called that—he is forced to reflect. He can’t untangle his brotherly love for his sister from what is happening. It’s there, underlying, and…magnifying everything. And perhaps his mind goes immediately to their future because, well, sisters are forever. It’s not as if there will ever be any true goodbyes between them, no matter how they may decide to distance themselves depending upon the choices they make when the time comes that they have to choose. And the time to choose isn’t all that far away… Their situation is forcing them to make long-term decisions that they might not otherwise have had to face so soon. Or ever.</p><p>It doesn’t feel like it happened fast, this thing between them. It feels like it happened very slowly, slow like the grass grows. He keeps stopping to remind himself that it’s ridiculous to be making life decisions around a phenomenon that is only a few weeks old but…he can’t think straight. It’s everything to him right now. He thought he had been in love before but he has never felt <em>this way</em>. Maybe the timeline doesn’t matter as much as what he feels. All the serious, life-altering things he has considered—telling their parents, choosing the same field office, living together—they all feel more necessary than premature.</p><p>Maybe he should just bite the bullet and say the unsayable: tell her he’s in love with her, tell her he wants to find a way to make sure they’re together whatever happens next. He keeps trying to put the ball in her court, to get her to say it first. It might just be instinct and habit—not wanting to expose his soft, vulnerable underbelly, that center of insecurities and emotion that she has exploited so many times before. But he’s not really afraid to say it. He wants it off his chest and in her ears. The problem is knowing what to do, once the truth has been faced. He’s just wants his big sister to go first and tell him what to do, to teach him about the world like she has always done.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0112"><h2>112. Chapter 112</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dylan snags a key to get into the labs after hours. The fake bedroom they had used for surveillance and search training is the perfect spot for a tryst (when it’s not full of cameras). But Daphne is late and by the time she arrives Dylan has decided that they need to talk sooner rather than later. He isn’t going to let her put him off this time with her hair and her lips and her eyelashes.</p><p class="gifs">






































</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0113"><h2>113. Chapter 113</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">










</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0114"><h2>114. Chapter 114</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  





</p><p>If you had told fifteen year-old Dylan Kane that someday he would be interested in his sister’s company let alone <em>crave</em> it, he would have laughed in your face. It would have gone pretty much the same way only a couple of months ago. Dylan still can’t really get over it—how much he enjoys being around her now. He’s never <em>wanted</em> somebody like this—not even as a hormonal fifteen year-old—but it’s not just that, it’s everything. It’s how nice it feels to make her laugh, and how comforting it is to say goodnight to her, seeing her last thing each day and knowing she’s right there across the hall only feet away. It was something he certainly hadn’t appreciated growing up—the privilege of having her close.</p>
<hr/><p class="gifs">


</p><p>Dylan was trying not to take advantage of how accommodating Will was being, but if he was going to be out anyway…</p><p class="gifs">
  



</p><p>No, they hadn’t.</p><p class="gifs">
  

</p><p>Someday Will is going to walk in and want to talk about the weather, like how it had snowed in early November and now it ‘s unseasonably warm. But today is apparently not that day.</p><p class="gifs">
  

</p><p><em>Or Nebraska,</em> Dylan doesn’t say. But if he can’t go with Daphne, he can imagine worse things than starting out where Will is.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0115"><h2>115. Chapter 115</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  



</p><p>That’s an unexpected compliment from Iris, but Daphne doesn’t get a chance to think about it. The form lists the respective trainee’s field office preferences, which had been submitted digitally this week, and asks for a signature confirmation.</p><p>Honolulu, San Diego, and Miami…</p><p class="gifs">
  

</p><p>Dylan hadn’t selected a single office in common with her choices, and his were all on the other side of the country. He knew where she wanted to be—HQ or NYC. He hadn’t even listed anything on the East Coast.</p><p class="gifs">
  



</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0116"><h2>116. Chapter 116</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Daphne stews for a few hours, alternately pacing and staring at Dylan’s form. She is upset enough to confront Dylan right away but she doesn’t know what to say to him yet. She knows she feels betrayed, but she’s not sure if he has really done anything wrong or not. It was so easy to get mad at him before—now she wants to give him the benefit of the doubt. And she knows this, most likely, is a problem of her own making.</p><p>After a team assignment in town, which barely manages to hold her attention, she gets herself worked up again and then heads over to his room.</p><p class="gifs">
  
</p><p>He has been expecting her.</p><p class="gifs">












</p><p>They have a future together no matter what, don’t they? As brother and sister if nothing else. Right? Why is he acting like that’s not true?</p><p class="gifs">


</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0117"><h2>117. Chapter 117</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  



</p><p>The idea of Dylan chatting up bikini-clad ladies on South Beach while she tries to make it as a new agent pushing pencils in DC with no one but her parents for company has sent her spiraling. She’s almost in hysterics but she can’t calm herself down knowing how close they are to the end of the academy and not knowing if Dylan will be coming with her. It’s her fault they’re here, she knows it’s her fault. Because she didn’t want to make any promises to him that she couldn’t keep. Because she kept waiting for her willpower and good decision-making to kick in. (They haven’t yet.) Because she just kept assuming he would follow her.</p><p>She never wanted to feel this way—like everything was meaningless if she had to do it without him. That’s all the more reason for the two of them to go their separate ways…</p><p>…but of course that’s not really what she wants. She’s not even sure she would let go of how she feels, even if she knew how. It’s like it’s a part of her now.</p><p class="gifs">
  

</p><p>It’s an empty threat. </p><p>She has already envisioned her and Dylan navigating a post-break-up world. (It’s all she has been doing for the past day and a half.) Dylan goes to Honolulu or whichever distant shore of his choice, and she goes to DC. They’ll see each other next probably for Easter or maybe not until Mother’s Day. And…they don’t make it through the weekend without hooking up. Honestly she can’t imagine—no matter where they live, what’s going on in their lives, or what their relationship status is—that they wouldn’t fall back into bed with each other the second they were together again. It might go a little like it did that night of her undercover assignment—the two of them needling each other (this time about not being willing to make the right sacrifices), the anger building until it explodes. </p><p>Why does their parents’ house have to be so big? She can think of at least a dozen different places where they could go for privacy, a few even if the house was full of guests. It would be too easy, impossible to resist. And it would probably happen again, year after year. What kind of life would that be?</p><p class="gifs">
  


</p><p>She’s so tired of not knowing what’s going to happen, of being in free fall. She grasps for another handhold: </p><p class="gifs">
  
</p><p>Her willpower and good decision-making are still failing her, but the saying is “fake it until you make it”, isn’t it? She spits out something about the inevitability of the relationship ending even if they had all the time in the world to plan their future.</p><p>Daphne doesn’t even get into the way this…<em>bond</em> with him is threatening her independent spirit. He would just roll his eyes and call her out again for being afraid. He’d be right. There’s still a cautionary voice inside her that’s in revolt against this dependency, but it’s quieter and quieter. </p><p class="gifs">
  
</p><p>She needs to say it, because it needs to have been said. Can a relationship like this really survive? It would be hard enough to say goodbye now—how much worse would it be after a few years? </p><p>But she wants to be talked out of what she’s voicing. She’s primed to be talked out of it. The idea of moving on from this, from him—really moving on—feels impossible to her now, and she can’t make herself want it. If there was ever a point of no return, it’s long past. </p><p class="gifs">
  











































</p><p>She can feel the difference in his body, now that all of his tension and fear is gone. She’s afraid it will infect her, and she’ll forget to be cautious. She’s ready right now, for that apartment together. They’ll put thick curtains on all the windows and a chain on the door. It’ll be a two bedroom apartment, to keep up appearances. She’ll learn to like his favorite TV shows, and he’ll let her choose the music, and maybe he’ll actually listen this time when she teaches him how to properly load the dishwasher.</p><p>They talk for hours. All night, almost. About their parents, field offices, apartments, children. (There are no rings, no wedding planning—but it’s an engagement of its own kind.) They don’t dodge any topics, no matter how difficult. She has never trusted someone enough to be this honest with them. For once in her life she actually wants Dylan to know all of her secrets.</p><p>He’s perfectly willing to go to DC, but wonders if they should begin somewhere out of the way, like Knoxville or Seattle. Make all their mistakes in a place that doesn’t matter with people they can leave behind, then move back to DC once they’ve got all the kinks worked out. It’s not a bad idea, but she she’s in a hurry to be where the action is.</p><p>They couldn’t live in an apartment together forever without raising suspicions. They come up with all sorts of ideas about houses with adjoining back yards or duplexes or guest houses. Then when they’re much older, they can move back in together and no one will be suspicious. She pictures them in their 80s drinking lemonade and watching game shows together—or whatever it is that retirees do—and it makes her heart almost burst. Dylan is going to be the most adorable old man.</p><p>Daphne and Dylan both had the same attitude towards children before this: maybe, maybe not, but definitely not any time soon. It had always been hard for Daphne to imagine herself as a mother, and yet she isn’t ready to shut the door on it either. Dylan had always figured he was too selfish to raise a child, but Daphne disagrees. He would be a great dad. Being brother and sister certainly complicates things, but they have options. She can adopt as a single parent. Even if she decided to use a sperm donor, Dylan would still be the biological uncle to her child. And there is always the traditional way… (Dylan seems well-informed and Daphne is horrified to learn that Will is the one who did all the research.) The secret doesn’t seem like a fair burden to place on a child’s shoulders—but if it is a safe, happy family, isn’t that the important part?</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0118"><h2>118. Chapter 118</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Alex is at her boyfriend’s again and had texted that she was going straight to class (along with what she needed Daphne to bring there for her.) So Daphne sleeps easy with Dylan at her side, stuffed into the dormitory twin-sized bed and dreaming of easier and happier days to come.</p><p>…But just in case they get up pretty early.</p><p class="gifs">
  





</p><p>Dylan dashes across the hall but the door is still locked.</p><p class="gifs">
  
























</p><p>She really thought they had been joking this whole time.</p><p class="gifs">
  
</p><p>Dylan has a theory that the revelation will actually bring their parents closer together, like it’ll give them a common cause or something. Daphne’s not entirely convinced. Issues like these tend to expose the weaknesses that are already there in a marriage, not patch them. But those weaknesses are already at their most exposed, so maybe there is no better time.</p><p>She knows why he wants to tell them: if they know, then it’s real. There’s no going back. No temptation for her to dump him and say, “At least we ended it before Mom and Dad found out.”</p><p>She wants them to know too. She can’t even imagine the relief that exists on the other side of that obstacle. To be able to start their new life without that hanging over their heads…</p><p>And they’re both still haunted by their father’s little smile and his words: “No more secrets.” They want that genuine, legitimate fresh start for their family.</p><p>But…that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0119"><h2>119. Chapter 119</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">

</p><p>The Friday before Christmas is here and they’re on break at the academy until the day after New Year’s. She’s tired of dorm life…for obvious reasons…and could use the break from studying too. Though what they’ve decided to do while they’re at home is looming over her.</p><p class="gifs">









</p><p>She vaguely recalled not being able to <em>not</em> touch him…</p><p class="gifs">



</p><p>No one is paying attention, no one is even close enough to hear them over the loud music. Still, she wants to ask him if he knows that hiding incest in plain sight is not a thing. If anyone is going to accidentally expose them, it’s going to be him. If he’s going to throw caution to the wind at every party then he is going to have to give up either drinking or talking.</p><p class="gifs">



</p><p>She isn’t buying his cool act. He’s just as scared as she is.</p><p class="gifs">









</p>
<hr/><p>Daphne, understandably, hadn’t received a lot of updates on their parents’ situation. It’s not something to be casually texted about. The few times she had tried to call to talk to her mother about it, her mother had changed the subject. Dylan got more out of her—their mother always told Dylan everything. (Including all of Daphne’s secrets growing up.) She had said that she and their father were “trying”. Their mother isn’t forgiving by nature, but one thing that Daphne knows for sure is that she really loves her husband.</p><p>As happy as Dylan is making Daphne, she feels like this whole thing is forcing her to learn a lesson about accommodating the imperfections of life and finding a way to accept the unexpected.</p><p>They get in to DC late and don’t do more than exchange hellos with their parents before everyone heads to bed. Even though they were there only a few weeks earlier at Thanksgiving, it’s indescribably strange to peer across the hallway at Dylan in his childhood bedroom. They had grown up in this house. He wiggles his eyebrows at her but she shuts her door on him with a longing sigh. It would undermine their entire agenda to get caught now.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0120"><h2>120. Chapter 120</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Their parents have a tradition of throwing a large Christmas party for their colleagues on the Saturday evening closest to Christmas Eve. This year it falls on the day right after Daphne and Dylan come home for the holiday break. Despite their tumultuous past few weeks, their parents are still on the hook for it this year—because they are both in the FBI and have a large house, it is expected they host and they can’t very well say why don’t they don’t want to after so many years of doing it. Usually Daphne doesn’t mind—it’s a great opportunity to network. She and Dylan have been using the party for years to make friends with the leadership. But today she doesn’t want all of these strangers in her home.</p><p class="gifs">

</p><p>She can tell Dylan is tense. She is so tuned into his moods now, but it isn’t hard to see he’s on the verge.</p><p>Unlike their mother, who is all-business and holding everything in just as much as she always does.</p><p class="gifs">






</p><p>Oh, shit.</p><p class="gifs">
  
</p><p>Daphne can’t even imagine what their mother must be thinking to learn that there is some other secret being kept from her. Whatever she’s thinking, Daphne can guarantee it’s not what Dylan is about to say. Daphne’s not sure how she keeps her eyes open. She just wants to close them and pretend like she’s not here right now.</p><p class="gifs">



</p><p>She and Dylan have a plan to wait for the following day and bring “it” up while everyone is finishing their breakfast. They had talked at length about why that was the perfect time and how they would present it. Dylan blows that plan to smithereens when the secret comes spilling out of him while the family is gathered in the kitchen to check on the catering. (Thankfully the caterers are all mingling with trays at the moment.)</p><p class="gifs">





</p><p>Their parents look so confused. They have no idea what he’s talking about. It would be funny if it wasn’t so…</p><p class="gifs">










</p><p>Daphne doesn’t stick around to see what their parents’ reactions are. Like Dylan, she can’t get out of that kitchen fast enough.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0121"><h2>121. Chapter 121</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">








</p><p>They don’t get a chance to finish their conversation—their mother is about to toast. Daphne wishes they had another second—she wants to reassure Dylan that she isn’t angry. (And if she really wanted to stop him, she could have. She could have used the old torture twist and pulled him right out of there.)</p><p>In fact, she feels so relieved to have it all out in the open that she can’t even be annoyed that he had abandoned their plan. In the end, it might even work out for the best: their parents will have plenty of time to think before they’ll have a chance to lecture their kids.</p><p class="gifs">
  



</p><p>Usually their father is the one who speaks, and Daphne can only assume that he is too distracted to do it. Neither he nor their mother seem entirely themselves, and their smiles are quite forced. Daphne feels more than a little guilty for placing this on their shoulders at now of all times, but if it ends up working in their favor then Daphne can’t regret how it went down.</p><p class="gifs">
  


</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0122"><h2>122. Chapter 122</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Daphne and Dylan avoid their parents for the next hour or so, answering the door when necessary, maintaining the fire, and mingling halfheartedly with the guests. Her anxiety is gnawing a hole in her stomach, and she wishes she could hold Dylan’s hand or feel his arm around her. In front of so many family friends, they have to settle for standing next to each other, which is enough to shock anyone who knows them. Eventually they follow a guest upstairs to explain about one of the pieces in their father’s art collection, and end up unexpectedly alone in a semi-private moment with their mother.</p><p>Daphne tries to initiate some benign small talk, hiding behind a polite smile, but their mother cuts straight to the chase. She doesn’t seem angry, though.</p><p class="gifs">
  
  




</p><p>Did she just make a joke?</p><p>With the kind of work their parents do, nothing is really unthinkable to them. Still, it’s remarkable how well she is taking it. Maybe she is just saving up her energy for a lecture later. Or maybe Dylan had been right: this was the time to tell them, when they already didn’t feel like theirs was a nice, normal family where nothing like this would ever happen.</p><p>It was always hard to tell exactly how their mother felt about controversial subjects. She was always able to put on that mask, the same one Daphne always imagined her using on her interrogation subjects.</p><p class="gifs">
  


</p><p>Their mother makes a face, like she can imagine how Will might have found out.</p><p class="gifs">
  





</p><p>There it is. That’s a little bit more what they had been anticipating.</p><p>Their mother walks away with a strained smile and without saying anything else. It was an uncomfortable conversation, and far from ideal. But Daphne is optimistic: it certainly wasn’t any worse than could have been expected. In fact it was far better.</p><p class="gifs">
  






</p><p>He’s probably right. He understands their mother’s ways better than Daphne ever could. Daphne had hoped that being in the FBI would bring her and her mother closer. They would have a lot to bond over—the difficulties of their profession in general, and surviving in a male-dominated field. And they would have more opportunities to see each other working in the same building. She really hopes this won’t drive them further apart, though she supposes it’s only inevitable if it does.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0123"><h2>123. Chapter 123</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Daphne’s not ready to concede the evening. She gives her mother some space to forget about it for a while, then follows her outside into the cold where she went to escape the party for a few minutes, like she always does. Daphne doesn’t know if she will be able to say exactly the right thing—she isn’t very good at that—but maybe their mother just needs to hear her speak from the heart.</p><p class="gifs">









</p><p>Daphne can admit that she had always brought the same kind of guys home, guys that were nothing like Dylan. But none of those relationships had worked out, because she did have a type, but it wasn’t them: it was Dylan.</p><p class="gifs">



</p><p>Daphne can’t blame her mother for being confused. It was all true, at least on the surface. She can’t spare her mother all the sordid details: she tells her quite simply, “It’s obvious to me now that we fought for fun.” She doesn’t need to say the rest—that it had been foreplay, that they don’t need to fight anymore because they do something else instead.</p><p>It hadn’t always been fun or exhilarating, their bickering. Sometimes it was just addictive, and sometimes it was just because he always was able to get under her skin like no one else, but either way it seemed to come back to this.</p><p>And Daphne wonders now how many of their fights were just because they didn’t know what to do with their feelings or with each other.</p><p class="gifs">

</p><p>Daphne thinks about what Dylan had said—that their mother still needs to be “convinced”—and decides to be completely honest. She explains to her what she had just finished figuring out for herself: Dylan is the type who gets along well with people—he could probably find love again eventually and be happy enough. But Dylan is the only person who has ever made Daphne feel anything real. She isn’t young. She has dated around, met plenty of men. What she has with Dylan is special.</p><p class="gifs">


</p><p>Her mother is a little taken aback, even after everything she already knows, to hear such strong language from her emotionally-reserved, independent, pragmatic daughter. Daphne leaves the discussion on that high note, and changes the topic.</p><p class="gifs">


</p><p>It’s obvious that she doesn’t want to talk about her marital troubles. But she rewards honesty with honesty—and maybe she’s just a little glad to get away from that other subject.</p><p class="gifs">








</p><p>She’s stronger than Daphne or Dylan ever gave her credit for. Daphne hopes someday their mother will be able to look at their father and be reminded of the day that he chose her again, and not what led up to that.</p><p class="gifs">










</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0124"><h2>124. Chapter 124</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Christmas wasn’t a disaster—mainly because their father got called in on an important case and was hardly around. Their mother kept to herself, and stuck to safe topics at meal times (like religion, money, and politics). Dylan had always liked it when the family was together for the holidays—even Daphne!—so he feels guilty and regretful that there was no sense of festivity or togetherness. But one wasted Christmas wasn’t so bad. There was always next year. He had to believe that next year would be better.</p><p>His father and mother left to spend New Year’s Eve in Paris . (Dylan does mention that incest is legal there as they say their goodbyes—thanks, Will.) The trip had been planned since before the later stages of their father’s affair but they decided to go anyway, even though their marriage is still in a tenuous place.</p><p>Dylan doesn’t want it to be so, but the truth is that it’s a relief to get away from them. And he and Daphne having the house to themselves for an entire week is the best Christmas present he could have received. He has to wonder if something would have happened between them during this time anyway, somehow, if it hadn’t happened already. He can’t imagine the two of them bouncing around in these halls for seven days entirely by themselves without it leading to some kind of collision.</p><p class="gifs">
  
</p><p>He thinks so. Surely something would wear off after time. But there was enough foundation to last the rest of their lives.</p><p class="gifs">
  



</p><p>He can’t call her crazy if it’s not a crazy idea. He felt this click, when he realized that he was in love with her. Even though it was a colossal upheaval of his life and his identity and his future, what it really felt like was everything falling into place. Like everything was coming into focus. He doesn’t know how to describe it to his parents, all he can say is, “It’s right, it’s right. I know it’s right.” He saw it all now, everything he couldn’t see before.</p><p class="gifs">
  

</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0125"><h2>125. Chapter 125</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s not easy to return to Quantico after a seven-day honeymoon. They head back in advance of their parents’ return from Europe, knowing they would see them again soon. And sure enough, Dylan comes across his mom on campus that very week.</p><p class="gifs">
  
  



</p><p>Except for all of Christmas break, when she had avoided him and Daphne like the plague.</p><p class="gifs">
  
</p><p>It’s a soft sort of apology: I’m sorry there was unpleasantness, but I would do it again. That kind of thing.</p><p class="gifs">
  





</p><p>It was something they had hoped for eventually, but he didn’t dare say that.</p><p class="gifs">
  



</p><p>Their mother specializes in profiling. She has several degrees in psychological fields and knows all about dark things and what leads to them.</p><p class="gifs">
  
</p><p>His mother doesn’t bring up any of the obvious things—like birth defects, public humiliation, or prosecution—and he respects her for it. She knows her children are intelligent, educated, generally wise and well-behaved. They don’t need to be lectured about those things. They wouldn’t be doing this unless…Unless they really are in love, he hopes she thinks.</p><p class="gifs">
  


</p><p>Well, that probably could have gone better…</p><p>Daphne said she thought she had really gotten through to their mother but clearly their mother still had some doubts.</p><p>Dylan thought telling their parents was the healthy thing to do. He didn’t want it to be a dirty secret in a family that was trying to not have any more of those. He wanted it to be…pure, not something they had to lie about all the time to the people they cared most for. But he’s slowly realizing the position that he has put his parents in: they’re complicit now. He can see why his mother feels like she’s being held hostage by it.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0126"><h2>126. Chapter 126</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The trainees are split up for the day to take turns getting one-on-one training on CCTV software. Daphne isn’t even thinking about the fact that Dylan isn’t with her but it’s one of the first things that Alex brings up.</p><p class="gifs">


</p><p>And yet somehow she knows it has to be about Dylan and not lip wear.</p><p class="gifs">

</p><p>Alex proceeded to describe villainous uniformed bloodthirsty blonde siblings from the movie Catching Fire who seemed to be nearly-inseparable but were technically rivals in the arena, then lamented that no one had been around who could get her “awesomely brilliant reference”. (Daphne hadn’t seen that movie but she had to admit, with certain exaggerations, that it wasn’t a bad comparison.)</p><p class="gifs">


</p><p>Daphne isn’t sure which part of the association to be more alarmed about—“villainous and bloodthirsty” or “inseparable”. Then Alex adds that even when Daphne hadn’t been getting along with Dylan that they were “always together”, and she realizes it’s definitely the brother/sister partnership that’s a problem. Given how Will had found out about them—just by guessing—Daphne is wary of Alex’s observations, despite the lies she had told her.</p>
<hr/><p>As part of their morning workout they’re doing rock-climbing, and Daphne begins to wish Dylan was there with her because of how fun it is. Cashmere does miss her Gloss after all.</p><p>Well, it starts out fun, anyway…</p><p class="gifs">








</p><p>Everyone knows that the Washington D.C. office never has more than two spots open for entry level agents, and sometimes only 1. It’s the place you move up to, not where you start out. Daphne is warming back up to Iris again, slowly, but if she is going to DC, there is only one person she wants to go with.</p><p>It probably isn’t the best idea, but Daphne goes straight to the authority to demand to know what is going on. There are a lot of promising new agents in the program but of the crop who want to be placed in DC, she and Dylan have outperformed them all on a regular basis. It might not have been true for any given term—the FBI attracts a lot of gifted and experienced people—but they have been lucky.</p><p class="gifs">


</p><p>That is not as hard for Daphne to admit as it would have been a few months ago. She has done very well herself but Dylan has certainly been more consistent.</p><p class="gifs">



</p><p>Despite her rude manner—she has tried to calm herself down and really can’t do it right now—he says something really nice: “You’ll get a lot of shit for having parents in the bureau, especially when you first start out. Don’t let anyone tell you guys that you didn’t earn your right to be there.” But that doesn’t really solve her problem, does it? She knows it won’t look good if the two spots in the DC office both go to Kanes, but they worked their asses off.</p><p class="gifs">


</p><p>He implies that Iris has friends in high places too. But somehow Daphne doubts this is about Iris and her connections, especially since Iris had already mentioned being perfectly happy with the idea of New York…</p><p class="gifs">



</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0127"><h2>127. Chapter 127</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Daphne warns Dylan about what Jake had said and the lack of assurances she had gotten from the instructor, but he cautions her to wait to freak out until after the formal announcement is made. And then it’s made, and it’s exactly what they feared: Daphne and Iris are assigned to DC; Dylan is going to San Diego, even though he had removed it from his finalized list of preferences in favor of other offices in the northeast. Richmond and Baltimore aren’t that far away, but San Diego…</p><p>It’s the first time so far she has ever truly wished they could get legally married—the FBI would never separate a husband and a wife like this. But maybe they are being separated by one of the few people who actually does know they’re together…</p><p class="gifs">
  



</p><p>The class is being divided by field office assignment and grouped into regions and specialties. It’ll be this way for the rest of the term, at least the classroom part. They’re being split up already.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0128"><h2>128. Chapter 128</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  













</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0129"><h2>129. Chapter 129</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They’re running out of excuses to miss class but it’s too important to wait, so Daphne and Dylan head down to the DC office the next day to have things out with their father. Dylan stays out of sight to give Daphne a chance to make her case, but her father isn’t happy to see her so she’s already off to a bad start.</p><p class="gifs">
  

</p><p>Daphne’s plan to be calm and understanding flies right out the window at the look on his face and his reluctance to talk with her.</p><p class="gifs">
  



</p><p>Why can’t he see that there’s no going back to the way things were? Her father is taking a practical view towards love, thinking that after enough time apart they will get over each other. But this is not a practical love. She thought after his affair that he would be more understanding, but apparently his sacrifice has only hardened him. He wants to hold them up to the standard of the decision he made.</p><p class="gifs">
  
</p><p>So much changed so fast. How can she make him believe it?</p><p class="gifs">
  


</p><p>It’s hard for her to argue with that. How would she respond if she were in her parents’ place? But if he really wants them to be happy, then this is what he should want for them. If he can’t see that then he’s not really looking, because he doesn’t want to look.</p><p class="gifs">
  



</p><p>He almost seems to hesitate, but what he says next makes her wish she had never gotten through to him at all, because if he didn’t change his mind then, then he never would.</p><p class="gifs">
  



</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0130"><h2>130. Chapter 130</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">


</p><p>Daphne wishes Dylan could stroll into their father’s office all suave understanding and sympathetic nods like she was supposed to do but he’s at his boiling point.</p><p class="gifs">

</p><p>Old instincts die hard. She’s not proud of saying it but she’s about to lose him and all she can think is, “This wasn’t my idea.”</p><p class="gifs">





</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0131"><h2>131. Chapter 131</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="gifs">
  

















</p><p>What his father is saying sounds temptingly like sense, but he knows his father isn’t after peace of mind. Maybe it would be easier for their parents to accept the relationship after Dylan and Daphne had proven that several years of separation didn’t change their feelings, but Dylan isn’t prepared to waste that much time just to appease them. (Though part of him wants to do it—just as a fuck you, to show them how wrong they are. They’re rooting for him to fail, so he wants to succeed.)</p><p class="gifs">
  




</p><p>His father’s exasperation wanes, and Dylan thinks he has finally broken down the wall of denial, but he isn’t prepared for what’s really going on.</p><p class="gifs">
  




</p><p>Dylan shouldn’t be so surprised but it knocks the wind out of him.</p><p>His father explains that he tried to talk their mother out of it, to convince her to put Dylan in Baltimore or Richmond, but she wouldn’t be dissuaded. She wanted them as far apart as possible. He begs Dylan not to quit the FBI, and vows to to try and work on their mother some more.</p><p class="gifs">
  
</p><p>Dylan has never felt more hopeless about their situation. Their father’s support—at least that Dylan should be in or near Washington—means very little in the face of their mother’s intense opposition. She would have the final word.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0132"><h2>132. Chapter 132</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dylan doesn’t say much during the drive back to Quantico, except to tell her that they’d had it all wrong, and their mother is the one working against them. Daphne is crushed: she really thought she had some kind of breakthrough with her mom that night at the party. Though it’s a little gratifying that she’s letting Daphne have the prestigious post at HQ and is instead sending her precious son Dylan so far away.</p><p>They made an excuse about a family emergency to miss the morning workouts but had to somehow make it through the afternoon classes with this black cloud over their heads, a vacuum of despair where their hope used to be. Dylan is grouped in with the other border town offices so she can’t see how he’s doing. Afterwards he’s nowhere to be found, and if he needs time by himself to think she’s worried what kind of decision he’s trying to reach.</p><p class="gifs">
  






















</p><p>The statistics on long-distance relationships aren’t promising. Maybe it’s arrogant to think their relationship will be any different than all the others that fail. But Daphne can’t help but feel that it is different. They’re brother and sister—they have a future together no matter what. And there’s no going back to the way it was before. The pull they feel towards each other is not a light that can be brightened or dimmed—it won’t burn out or fade out over time. It’s more like a new stage in their life cycle, like they’ve emerged from a cocoon in a new form. So those few years don’t scare her. They’re nothing.</p><p>She tries to keep the mood light and hopeful for Dylan, but neither one of them can muster much of a smile.</p><p class="gifs">
  
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<a name="section0133"><h2>133. Chapter 133</h2></a>
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    <p>They haven’t been able to get into the lab recently, so they have to settle for Dylan’s dorm and the moments they can get to themselves when Will is out. Daphne can tell that Will is the homebody type so she feels guilty for driving him to the library and the food court so often, but she has rationalized it to herself that they’re doing Will a favor, since he seems to have made a few tentative friendships with other trainees while forced to socialize in the common areas. (Dylan even seems a little jealous that Will isn’t so dependent on him for companionship anymore. Daphne thinks Dylan will miss him and it’s really sweet, especially since it’s usually Dylan’s habit to strike up quick, meaningless friendships instead.)</p><p>She doesn’t cry, but she wants to. Crying seems like admitting defeat, and she’s not willing to do that. San Diego is just a temporary setback. It’s a done deal for now, but Daphne won’t give up on wearing their mother down. When the academy started she hated the idea of her parents doing her any favors to help her career, but she doesn’t care if they call in every favor they have and use every last bit of clout and capital in their power to get Dylan transferred to DC as soon as possible. People will grumble, but if Dylan is qualified (which he is), and they both prove themselves to be valuable agents, then the resentment will die down. And there are other offices that are close enough—Richmond, Baltimore. Even Philadelphia has a manageable commute.</p><p>He tells her she doesn't need to worry about him. </p><p class="gifs">







</p><p>He rattles off the names of half their female classmates as a counterpoint, starting with Alex and ending with Iris. She knows he’s only teasing her, but the joke has a little bite, since she knows he has hooked up with at least a couple of those women.</p><p class="gifs">

</p><p>She knows his original comment was prompted by thinking about some of the things she has said to him in the past. Calling him inconstant, unreliable, incapable of commitment. She has said a million things to him, anything to put him down, to rile him up or get back at him for hurting her feelings or being at least loosely a party to whatever was bothering her. She always felt so justified—but how often was he her scapegoat for things that weren’t really anyone’s fault, let alone his? He had said that to her once—that she used him as fortune’s whipping boy. It was true…</p><p>She reassures him that she doesn’t think he’s incapable of attachment or constancy. If he loves her the way he has said that he does—the way that she loves him—then he will be true and come back to her.</p><p class="gifs">

</p><p>She’s a <em>little</em> worried—not about women, but that he’ll grow to like San Diego and won’t want to move back. It was where he originally wanted to go, after all. When he had decided to go to college on the West Coast she had wondered if he might stay out there. Even then it hadn’t been what she wanted. She remembered feeling a certain amount of vague regret that he would be so far away—she had even hoped he wouldn’t get in and would have to fall back on one of his nearby safety schools. She had been fine with not seeing him every day—but things between them were too complicated for her to randomly pick up the phone and call just because she wanted to hear his voice. It was just easier if he lived in the same city, where they could see each other regularly at family dinners or on any other number of comfortable pretexts. But he hadn’t stayed on the West Coast like she had feared—he had hopped around the country restlessly, staying with friends, working seasonal jobs, and— she now knew—taking a few post-graduate online courses to prepare for the FBI. Maybe he had always been waiting for this life to start, just like her.</p><p>Except it’s not starting, is it? Not the life they want, the one with each other.</p><p class="gifs">






</p><p>Daphne notices that Dylan hasn’t made a single comment about <em>her</em> being tempted by a hot young partner. But he already knows that she’s not the type to have her head turned by some guy, or to hook up with someone out of loneliness. (Even though Dylan had clearly been bothered by her dalliance with Jake, he had never seemed to doubt that it was insignificant.) She’ll be too busy working to be lonely, and Dylan flying back regularly and the two of them videochatting will be enough for her, for now.</p><p class="gifs">


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<a name="section0134"><h2>134. Chapter 134</h2></a>
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</p><p>Now that he knows how his mother actually feels about the matter, this doesn’t surprise Dylan at all. It’s her to a T.</p><p class="gifs">






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That made a certain amount of sense. But would their mother expect Dylan not to visit? Did she want him to cut himself off completely? He has no intention of doing that. And how long before she’s ready to “reevaluate”? Dylan and Daphne have assumed that he would have the ability to transfer to the DC area with or without their parents’ help after Dylan had put in his time as a rookie in San Diego. It will be easier with their help. But there’s no tacit agreement with their mother that if they prove that distance and time won’t drive them apart that she would reward them with what they wanted. There’s no guarantee that she’ll ever change her mind. Isn’t that what Daphne told him, when he urged her towards this? He said the sooner they tell their parents, the sooner they’ll get over it. And she said, “What if they never do?” He thought at the time like Will thinks now—they would just need time. Was that naive? It had already been a few weeks.</p><p class="gifs">






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<a name="section0135"><h2>135. Chapter 135</h2></a>
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    <p>A couple of weeks go by without Daphne and Dylan hearing anything from their parents. Daphne was ready to plant herself right inside their mother’s bedroom until their mother agreed to speak with her, but Dylan thought they should give their mother some more time, as per Will’s suggestion—which would also allow their father a chance to advocate for them. Daphne came around to their point of view—especially since she didn’t know what to say to their mother that she hadn’t already said. Dylan isn’t sure if giving her more time will make any difference, but it is the only thing they haven’t tried yet. Daphne is willing to try it…for now.</p><p>Though they continue to nurture their remaining ember of hope, they are not in denial about what is most likely coming: they try to enjoy the time they have left together. Their uncle—their father’s brother—has a fishing cabin in western Pennsylvania that isn’t used very much during the winter. He gave Dylan permission to go up there for the weekend. So Daphne and Dylan packed bags and braved the long drive and ice and snow to get some proper alone time. They didn’t imagine that their parents would have told Uncle Max their secret—and even if they had, their Uncle Max didn’t like their mother very much and probably would have taken some pleasure in flouting her request to not enable them. Still, they hoped it wouldn’t get back to her that they had taken advantage of Max’s cabin, or else it might be the last time they ever could.</p><p>The cabin is…rustic. They had to heat the place with a wood stove and bring their own water because the well was frozen. They slept with two pairs of socks on and subsisted on sandwiches. It reminded her of playing house, the way she and Dylan had done when they were kids. They didn’t have a tree house—it was more like a shed. But it was filled with toys. They would take picnic lunches out there, and Dylan would collect sticks and pretend to make fires, and he would agree to her tea parties if she agreed to play along like they were being attacked afterwards (which was secretly just as fun for her but she was too smart to confess away a bargaining chip). He would pretend to hunt squirrels and crows with his bow-and-arrow and then they would pretend to eat his kills. It usually ended with one of them saying, “Well fine. Then I don’t want to play with you” and storming off, but in retrospect they are mostly good memories. </p><p>She’s glad they went to the cabin. But reality hits them hard when they get back: only one full week left. Most of the rest of the academy will be exams, but for the day they’ve brought in some of the agents who have worked on a selection of the biggest cases over the past two decades. Dylan and Daphne’s parents are among the guests, and unlike in the past, they didn’t give their kids any warning that they would be there. Daphne manages to get a moment alone with their father before class begins while their mother is engaged in another conversation.</p><p class="gifs">




</p><p>One step at a time. It’s not as if she and Dylan expected their parents to be instantly OK with their relationship. They knew that telling them was the <em>beginning</em> of a process, not an endgame in and of itself. …But it was obvious now that they should have saved starting that process until after they were both comfortably settled in together in DC. </p><p>Daphne doesn’t get a chance to ask any more questions—the rest of the students start funneling in.</p><p class="gifs">



</p><p>Their father discusses his bombing case from 2002. Dylan remembers when it happened—it seemed like his father didn’t come home for a whole week.</p><p class="gifs">


</p><p>Their mother had a high-profile serial killer case in the early 2010s that she and her task force eventually solved. Even though she caught the guy eventually she had never considered it a success because of how long it had taken and how many more victims there had been after she started investigating. </p><p class="gifs">

</p><p>Daphne is staring daggers at her, but their mother doesn’t seem to notice. </p><p class="gifs">



</p><p>Dylan and Daphne had been in college during this case, and their mother briefly mentions in front of the whole class that she had been glad that they weren’t there, because she didn’t like the way she had to bring it home each night. She’s making a point about the work getting under your skin, but Dylan thinks she’s trying to tell her children that she loves them at the same time. He feels it tugging at him and he has to struggle a little bit to hold on to his righteous indignation. </p><p class="gifs">



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<a name="section0136"><h2>136. Chapter 136</h2></a>
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    <p>Daphne gets a chance to finish her conversation with her father after class lets out. Even though his only agenda is to keep his son close by, he makes an effort to sound sympathetic to his children’s struggle.</p><p>Despite the strain on their relationship ever since Dylan suspected the affair, Daphne can see that their father still thinks of Dylan as his little buddy, like he always had. Their father always liked to have Dylan around—he took him on errands with him, out to sports games, on fishing trips with Uncle Max. Guy stuff. It wasn’t that Daphne had wished she had been invited, but she couldn’t help but be envious of their friendship. She never had anything comparable with their mother, who is much more introverted and likes to spend her free time reading. And it’s still happening: their father doesn’t want Dylan to go to San Diego because he wants his buddy here with him. It’s certainly not the principle of the thing motivating him.</p><p class="gifs">






</p><p>It really is like Dylan said: Daphne’s determination will make or break this thing. Both their parents still think Dylan is just being his mischievous self, leading his sister who ought to know better astray. But it’s still her fault in their eyes because she’s supposed to be the one with sense.</p>
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<a name="section0137"><h2>137. Chapter 137</h2></a>
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</p><p>Dylan is surprised when his mother comes to find him in the lab. She’s well aware that he and Daphne know the truth about who is sending him to the other side of the country and he expects her to be avoiding him but she’s not. This is definitely a bad sign—it means she’s feeling confident about what she has done. It’s not the impression their father had given Daphne, but maybe he had dangled a little hope in front of her eyes to try and get back into her favor. Or maybe their mother is just putting on an act, trying to do the hard work of selling her choices now so that things will be smoother when she sees them next at graduation.</p><p>Dylan has Will’s advice in his mind about playing nice and cooperating but his parents really did raise him to be honest and he can’t just pretend like it’s all OK. Maybe he could earn his mother’s good will but he’s more afraid that exhibiting any kind of acceptance will give her the wrong idea, like maybe this whole thing could just go away like she hoped.</p><p class="gifs">
  





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<a name="section0138"><h2>138. Chapter 138</h2></a>
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    <p>The instructors and visiting agents take the trainees out on the town for a last night of fun before the exams begin. Daphne and Dylan can’t exactly celebrate Quantico coming to end when it means they’ll be facing separation. Daphne didn’t think their mother would join them—it’s not her kind of thing—but whether intentionally or not she has made herself available to hear what Daphne has to say. Dylan thinks it’s too late to get through to her but Daphne’s not ready to throw in the towel until she says one last thing.</p><p class="gifs">



</p><p>It feels a little ridiculous to be going through this forbidden-romance drama with her parents at such a late stage in her life. She had not been a rebellious teen. Her whole life she had been trying to impress them, to make them proud, to follow in their footsteps. She still is. And yet she finds herself saying, “But, Mama, I love him!” like some kind of Disney princess.</p><p class="gifs">



</p><p>Daphne walks away without giving her mother a chance to respond and can only hope that appealing to her mother’s distaste for uncertainty will get her what she wants.</p>
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<a name="section0139"><h2>139. Chapter 139</h2></a>
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</p><p>Choosing a place that was inexpensive so that he would have airfare money to visit Daphne frequently had restored at least some of Dylan’s sense of control over his own life. It wasn’t just what his mother had done: his father’s affair, being at the academy—all of it had made him feel like he could only react. But nothing more than falling in love with Daphne. He had felt like a passenger in his own life for the past few months; life was taking him for a ride. He isn’t the control freak that Daphne is, but he had reached his go-with-the-flow threshold: it had felt really good to <em>choose</em> something for once, even if what he was choosing was a crappy apartment.</p><p class="gifs">
  






</p><p>They would have been in trouble if Will hadn’t come up behind them and broken them apart in a hurry like he was being sent over in a game of red rover. Trying to make the most of their time together means they have accidentally become careless. They’re not used to being comfortable around each other—they don’t notice when they’re crossing the line from “getting along” to flirting.</p>
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<a name="section0140"><h2>140. Chapter 140</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s the end of term. They’ve been counting down the hours but it still feels like it hits too soon. They have a few more mandatory activities and one week to be entirely moved out of the dorms, but the exams and lessons are over.</p><p class="gifs">
  
</p><p>The exams were a little stressful. The whole class had been slacking off after receiving field office assignments but they still had to make a minimum score on all the final tests to graduate. Daphne had freaked out a little about the tests, having traumatic flashbacks to not passing the entrance exams. A history as an uneven test-taker was bound to make even the best of students nervous.</p><p>She didn’t strive for 100%, it wasn’t necessary. But still, she and Dylan had to spend more time studying than they would have liked. He joked about failing on purpose so that they would have to “repeat” Quantico. It didn’t work that way but she readily understood the desire to press pause. <em>Not yet, I’m not ready. Not yet.</em></p><p>Her training goals had undergone quite the journey. She came here to complete the academy, as was necessary. She got into the idea of proving how good she was, but more importantly, making a name for herself, not just trading on being a Kane. She’s not sure when exactly it became all about beating Dylan, but it didn’t take very long. And then, of course, that’s not how it ended. And now she doesn’t even care about rankings and scores. (At least, not as much as she used to…)</p><p>She has to admit that she’s a little excited, though, to get started. This is it. Her whole life she has been waiting for this: Agent Daphne Kane. After everything that got thrown at her, got in her way, she made it.</p>
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</p><p>Will is headed to Omaha and he and Dylan exchange a heartfelt goodbye at the graduation ceremony. Nothing forges a friendship quite like a secret but Daphne thinks it’s more than that: she had always accused Dylan of making only superficial connections with people—fast and meaningless—but he’s changing. He’s steadier, more grounded. More appreciative and acknowledging.</p><p>She’s changing too. Six months ago she wouldn’t have been moved by this.</p><p class="gifs">
  



</p><p>Even with all the tensions in their family, she and Dylan are still proud to graduate in front of their parents after wanting to be like them and make them proud their entire lives.</p><p>Overall, it’s a good day.</p>
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<a name="section0141"><h2>141. Chapter 141</h2></a>
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    <p>Alex’s boyfriend Ryan is going to move to New York to be with her, so Daphne and Dylan and a few other friends spend a couple of hours helping pack up his apartment. With so precious few hours left Daphne doesn’t want to waste them, but it would be useful to be owed a favor by someone in the New York office.</p><p class="gifs">

</p><p>It’s not exactly fun listening to Alex and her boyfriend plan out their new place, but Daphne’s trying to be happy for them. Even though she’s facing down a painful separation, she feels lucky to have Dylan. To have found a love like that. No matter what happens, it is worth it.</p><p class="gifs">












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<a name="section0142"><h2>142. Chapter 142</h2></a>
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</p><p>She can barely stand to look at the vacant room.</p><p>Will is gone. Dylan packed up his stuff but he’s rooming with Daphne now that Alex is gone too. They’ll stay in the dorms until the last possible minute, then probably go back to their parents’ house—in spite of everything—for another week or two. Daphne is still furious with her mother for intervening in their relationship, and even more so for denying Dylan his best chance in his career—but their family is experiencing a certain detente. Graduation went well, and they all went out for an awkward but civil dinner afterwards.</p><p>Dylan needs time to get settled in his new apartment in San Diego before his first day at the FBI—unpack, buy furniture and a car, get groceries—but he wants to push it. He hasn’t even bought his plane ticket to fly out there yet, or shipped any of his stuff. She should encourage him but she’s selfish, she wants him to stay for as long as he can.</p><p class="gifs">
  

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<a name="section0143"><h2>143. Chapter 143</h2></a>
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<a name="section0144"><h2>144. Chapter 144</h2></a>
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</p><p>He had some business to take care of, like canceling a lease in California…</p><p class="gifs">












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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><h3>DAPHNE &amp; DYLAN FINALE Q&amp;A</h3>
<p>(read at your own risk, I would hate for it to ruin something you had never even noticed):</p>
<dl class="faq">
<dt>Does Dylan’s hair change length overnight?</dt>
<dd>Quite frequently, yes. And sometimes even faster than that. But it should also be noted that he uses very special gel.</dd>
<dt>At one point he also looked several years younger.</dt>
<dd>Well now that just seems unlikely. Make-up, nothing but make-up.</dd>
<dt>The B&amp;B resembles their parents’ house a lot.</dt>
<dd>Hmmm. I hadn’t noticed. Maybe that’s why Daphne chose it? That’s some intense psychology at work.</dd>
<dt>And their parents seem to live in an entirely different building at Christmas.</dt>
<dd>Upstairs/downstairs. The upstairs has a wing with a much more modern look.</dd>
<dt>For such a big secret, Daphne &amp; Dylan sure talk a lot with the hallway door open.</dt>
<dd>Isn’t it convenient for them how often they’re the only ones there? Also, fortunately, the dormitory hallway has terrible acoustics and sound doesn’t travel very well.</dd>
<dt>Dylan’s room is right across from Daphne’s, right? But I noticed at least one time when Daphne was standing by Dylan’s door and you couldn’t see her room. And was the wall a different color?</dt>
<dd>Most people don’t know this but Quantico is a bit like Hogwarts. Sometimes it just moves itself around a little.</dd>
<dt>Is that what happened with disappearing/reappearing Christmas decorations?</dt>
<dd>No. Those were against regulations and had to be taken down until the weekend before break.</dd>
<dt>Why did Daphne carry around a clutch at her own house?</dt>
<dd>It was a part of the ensemble.</dd>
<dt>How did it take Dylan 10 minutes to put on his wristpiece and then all of the sudden he was fully dressed and sitting down?</dt>
<dd>Dylan gets dressed like he falls asleep—very slowly and then all at once.</dd>
<dt>So does fall never end in Quantico, Virginia?</dt>
<dd>Never. It’s always fall there. Sometimes early fall, sometimes late fall, but always fall.</dd>
<dt>The back of Dylan’s shirt sometimes says “Haas”. What’s that all about?</dt>
<dd>Oh that? That’s just a stain.</dd>
</dl></blockquote></div></div>
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